Cover
by WynCatastrophe
Summary: When a young boy is kidnapped by bounty hunters working for Ziro the Hutt, Anakin and friends hatch a daring plan to end a slave-raiding operation on Coruscant. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Ferus, Siri, Quinlan Vos, OCs.
1. Chapter 1

First chapter of Cover, sequel to Freefall and Gravity. Here's hoping you enjoy ...

Disclaimer: Oh, and George Lucas owns Star Wars and is much nicer to the characters than I am. Meanwhile, I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER ONE - SHARDS**

A strong hand reached out to help Anakin to his feet, and he looked up, surprised, into Siri Tachi's brilliant blue eyes.

"Master Tachi!" he exclaimed, and coughed up a puff of dust. "I didn't realize you were here."

"Oh, I never miss a good party," Siri said cheerfully. "I dragged Ferus along, too."

Anakin stopped in the act of helping Ryn to her feet, and she scrambled up on her own while Anakin said, "You invited Ferus to your birthday party?"

"I didn't invite anybody," Ryn said. "But I'm glad he's here." She surveyed the damaged room with a critical air. "Although he might have been better off in the Temple, all things considered."

Anakin wanted to say something else, something like _but you're my friend,_ but then Obi-Wan hurried over to them, sidestepping shards of blast-heated metal. Ferus was with him.

"Are you all right?" the Padawan asked them both, and Ryn nodded.

"I'm fine. Anakin took most of the blast." She touched his arm. "You hurt?"

There was a burning in his back that didn't bode well, but it wasn't too bad yet. "It's nothing."

"Don't give me that. Turn around."

Anakin obeyed her reluctantly, unpleasantly aware of the eyes on him, watching to see if he were all right.

Ryn whistled through her teeth. "If this is your nothing, I hope I never see your something." Anakin felt a slight, tugging pressure as she examined the wound with careful fingers. "Transparisteel shard," she said shortly. "Not huge, but buried deep. Nowhere near the spine, which is lucky, but definitely in range of the kidney." She drew back and brushed hair out of her face, smearing blood from her dark, sticky fingers. Looking at the streak of blood, even knowing it was his own, Anakin felt slightly sick.

Ryn's eyes on his face were serious. "I can't remove the shard here without risking more serious damage. You need a trained Healer, and I imagine others do, too. We'll have to call for a med-evac from the Temple."

"I'll be fine in a speeder," Anakin said, and Ryn shook her head.

"No. You need to stay as still as possible. In fact, I want you to do your best not to move at all until Vokara Che gets here." She glanced at Obi-Wan. "Go ahead and make the call. And be sure you tell them we're looking at a shrapnel wound with severe hemorrhaging and possible nerve damage to the lower back."

"That's quite the mouthful," Siri observed as Obi-Wan turned away, digging out his commlink.

"Field medic," Ryn said. "Anakin, I saw that. You have to be still. You are not going to die from this, but if you sustain nerve damage, you will probably lose some mobility. We don't want that."

"No," Anakin agreed. He felt dizzy.

"So hold very still until the med-evac gets here."

"I'm going to go help the Lorethans," Ferus said. "Unless you need me?" He was speaking to both of them, but he kept his eyes on Ryn.

"We're fine," Ryn answered. "I saw some of the Raven Guard head out. Let me know if you find anything interesting."

The tension that always came with Ferus's presence didn't fade as he walked away, following his master. Ryn must have sensed the feeling, because she gave Anakin a look of strained patience.

Anakin started to speak, but Ryn held up a hand to forestall him. "Is this about Ferus?" Anakin stopped, trying to remember exactly what he'd been going to say. "Because if it is," Ryn went on, "I think it's going to have to wait. There are a lot of wounded who need my help." When Anakin still didn't say anything, Ryn sighed. "Look, I'll be back. Just ... stay here and _do not move_." She raised a finger at him in warning. "I mean it." With a final admonishing look, she turned and melted into the crowd.

~*~*~

Dust hung in the air and transparisteel shards like the one in Anakin's back clanked underfoot. Pieces of wrenched metal, hot from the explosion, littered the floor. Ryn scrambled through the wreckage to the bar, which Ferus was busy turning into a makeshift triage.

_Like a good little Jedi_, Ryn thought, knowing she ought to be impressed but feeling vaguely exasperated. _Anakin must be rubbing off on me._

She found him trying, with more care than skill, to extricate a piece of metal from a young woman's leg.

Ryn brushed him aside, laying her fingers on the torn skin. She blinked away the instantly heightened awareness of the woman's pain and met her eyes. "It's the outer thigh, so you should be all right. Be ready to apply pressure as soon as I've pulled this fellow out, got it?"

The woman nodded, blonde hair falling crazily around a face pinched with pain. Ryn gave a sharp tug and the splinter of shrapnel came free. She tossed it to one side as the woman pressed her hand over the wound.

That job done, Ryn turned her head to meet Ferus's eyes over her shoulder even as she reached for her next patient, a member of the Raven Guard with another shrapnel wound and a burned shoulder and back. "Find me some kind of antiseptic. Hot water would be good, too."

Ferus nodded sharply and disappeared into the back of the diner. Ryn took a look at the piece of metal in the woman's bloody side and grimaced. "Take the med-evac to the Jedi Temple. That's going to bleed when it comes out." She turned her attention to the burn and yelled over the din. "Obi-Wan! ETA on the med-evac?"

"Under twenty minutes," Obi-Wan shouted back, and Ryn flicked a glance at Anakin, still standing where she'd left him, stranded alone in the middle of the rubble.

"Skywalker! You holding still?"

"_Yes,_" Anakin said tightly, just loud enough to be heard, and Ryn flashed him a thumbs-up with one hand as she began to peel back charred fabric with the other.

"Good job!" she yelled at him. "Keep doing that."

Ferus thrust a bottle of something bright blue into her hand. "Will this work?"

Ryn yanked the stopper out with more energy than grace and sniffed. The overpowering scent of 150 proof alcohol rocked her back on her heels. "Hell, yes. Don't tell me Dex serves this rocket fuel?"

Ferus shrugged. "It was in the kitchen." He held up a stack of mostly clean dish towels. "I found these, too."

"Good," Ryn said. "Soak one in alcohol and hand it to me."

They fell into a rhythm together, moving down the line of patients Makesh and Obi-Wan brought them with steady efficiency until the med-evac came whirring in to hover precariously over the narrow pedway outside. Then Ferus began helping the wounded onto the transport, and Ryn, trusting the Temple Healers to manage the task, made her way through the hubbub to Anakin.

She reached up and touched his cheek. "You've looked better."

Anakin's jaw was tight. "It hurts."

"The Healers are here," she said softly, as though he might have missed the commotion their entrance had caused. "It won't be long, now."

"It doesn't make sense," Anakin said, ignoring that. "Why was there only one explosion?"

"I don't know," Ryn said. "I heard Evinne order a chase; maybe the attacker -- or more than one -- was scared away."

"You think it was Ziro's men?"

"It seems likely," Ryn said. "We'll know more when the scouts report in."

Vokara Che stepped up beside her. "Where is the injury?"

Ryn led her around to Anakin's side and pointed. "There."

Vokara's headtails twitched with what Ryn thought might be concern. She laid her fingers on Anakin's back and closed her eyes, probing with the Force. Ryn saw the corners of Anakin's mouth tighten with pain and unadmitted fear, and reached out and gripped his hand in support.

"Over soon," she whispered, and Anakin nodded jerkily.

Vokara Che opened her eyes and focused them on Ryn. "I want to get this out before we try to get him in the transport," she said. Her tone was brisk, but Ryn could feel the worry radiating off of her. A field removal was less than ideal, under the circumstances. "Can you hold him?"

Ryn swallowed hard and stepped up, resting her feet on Anakin's and wrapping her arms around him so that she gripped her wrists across his upper back.

"Look in my eyes," she told him softly.

Somewhere, she could feel Vokara frowning at them, but Ryn pushed that awareness aside and focused on holding Anakin's gaze.

"Can you feel my heartbeat?"

Anakin looked puzzled, but she could feel his concentration narrowing. "Yes."

"Good. Listen to my heartbeat until there is nothing else. Just listen ..." Ryn stopped talking as she felt Anakin close his mind to everything but the steady thud.

Vokara Che must have sensed it, too, because she began the extraction.

Anakin's eyes widened in pain as he struggled to hold his concentration.

_Heartbeat,_ Ryn thought at him, lowering her shields a little to wrap him in her affection like a blanket. _Heartbeat, heartbeat..._

It worked until the transparisteel scraped through a layer of muscle and Anakin bucked in her arms, the movement restricted by Ryn's unyielding grip.

"Still," Ryn hissed against his throat as her chin thwacked his collarbone. "Not long now."

"One more good tug out to do it," Vokara said.

Ryn locked gazes with Anakin again. "Hear that? Almost over. I want you to wrap your arms around me and squeeze _hard_, all right?"

Anakin swallowed and wrapped his arms around her much narrower body.

"That's not squeezing."

"When I need to," Anakin muttered indistinctly, and Ryn realized that he had locked his teeth together.

Vokara looked at them doubtfully, but she bent to her task again.

Anakin's grip snapped tight, and his breath came in hard little gasps of agony. Pain burst through their connection, obliterating his obvious efforts at shielding, and Vokara Che straightened, holding the jagged piece of transparisteel.

"All done!" she declared. "Good work, you two." Her headtails twitched. "I've never seen that technique before."

Ryn grinned at her, giddy with relief, her own and Anakin's. "It worked, didn't it?"

"So it did." Vokara glanced out at the rest of the diner. "He needs a pressure bandage. Can you --"

"Got it covered," Ryn said. She looked at the tray of bandages across the room. "Feel like a frivolous use of the Force, Skywalker?"

Vokara rolled her eyes and moved on. The bandages flew into Anakin's grasp and he held them wordlessly while Ryn ripped off what was left of his leather tabard so the bandages could grip tightly.

She sent little waves of healing energy into his tissues as she worked; whether he could tell it or not was hard to say. As she tucked the last end in at his waist, Anakin caught her hand before she could move away.

"It's not your fault," he said quietly, and Ryn cringed. She had thought she'd hidden her guilt better than that, but apparently not.

"Isn't it?" she asked quietly, staring at their entwined fingers, covered in blood. "You came here for me." Her voice broke. "if you hadn't been trying to protect me, you wouldn't have gotten hurt."

"No," Anakin agreed. "But I would probably have been in the group that gave chase, and that would have been dangerous, too." Ryn tugged at her hand, wanting to escape this conversation, but Anakin held on, his grip gentle but as unrelenting as durasteel. "You didn't bring me here. I chose to come. So did everyone else. You can't bear the responsibility for that."

"Responsibility is my job."

Anakin's eyes narrowed, showing a flash of temper he usually reserved for people who weren't her. "The only person you are responsible for is yourself," he told her. "Or does that only apply to other people?"

Ryn remembered standing on a balcony in the Jedi Temple, telling him ... that he wasn't responsible for her choices, that her feelings weren't his fault. _You are not responsible for anyone's choices but your own. So here is a choice that's all mine: I'm yours for life, and I'm not asking anything in return. _ She'd told him that she was responsible for her own pain, that he couldn't stop her loving him, even if it meant she got hurt. She looked up into his blue eyes, warm and earnest and determined. Despite his seriousness, Ryn felt a smile pull up one corner of her mouth at the way he'd turned her words back on her.

"I'll let you have this round," she told him. "But only because you're injured. Now get to the transport."

"Aren't you coming?" Anakin asked, his nerves flashing through for just an instant before he managed to hide them again.

"There won't be room," Ryn said, hating herself for being practical instead of kind. "I'm sure Obi-Wan will follow you back. I'll catch a ride with Master Tachi when we're done here." She spared a dismal look for the rest of the diner and dragged a hand across her forehead again, smearing blood and dust. The place was a mess. And there were so many things she wanted to say to Anakin, but none of them were things she could say here. She coughed to clear her throat of dust and all the words it would be dangerous to say in front of the Jedi. "I'll see you at the Temple," she said instead, and walked away so he couldn't see her cry.


	2. Chapter 2 Dreams at Bay

A/N 1: Signed reviews have received their replies (I think!). For unsigned replies:

The Random Reader: Thanks so much for the awesome feedback! I'm glad you liked the setup. The story goes on ...

A/N 2: Evinne is worried, Ryn loses her temper, and Obi-Wan plays by the book.

A/N 3: Feedback is welcomed and petted and fed cheesecake.

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, nor am I making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER TWO -- Dreams at Bay**

With the wounded en route to the Temple and Obi-Wan following in an airspeeder, Ryn joined the Lorethans in beginning the process of putting Dex's Diner back to rights -- hauling away the debris and salvaging what could be saved. She was standing on top of the bar, patiently (well, more or less) working the shards of a broken light fixture loose so that it could be replaced, when Evinne approached.

"The men I sent out to find the attacker have reported back in," the blue-eyed Lorethan said. She didn't seem all that satisfied with the result.

Ryn decided to ignore the fact that two of the three "men" were actually women. She glanced down at Evinne's face, weary but still sharp and focused in the spotty lighting. "And?"

"And it was a bounty hunter with a missile launcher. His gear matched the description of one of Ziro's hires, but we're checking twice. They lost him somewhere in Downtown. Trying to pick up the his trail again."

Ryn grunted as she worked a particularly stubborn piece free. "You going to tell me who Cam is?"

Evinne's aura spiked with unease. "He's a boy who's been traveling with us. Why?"

Ryn dropped another shard into the box and fixed the older girl with a level stare.

Evinne couldn't hold her gaze and looked away, scanning the clean-up effort. "Okay. There probably is a connection."

Ryn chivvied at a cross-threaded with the tip of deactivated vibroblade, not bothering to look away from Evinne, who grimaced. "Okay, there _has_ to be a connection. But I'm not interested in Ziro's motivations. I just want Cam back."

"So again I ask." The screw came loose, tipping the axis of the light fixture so that Ryn had to shift her grip. "Who is he?"

"He's a friend."

Ryn lifted her eyebrows, hoping for some kind of elaboration, but Evinne, misinterpreting the gesture, flushed. "It's not like that! Came's your age. I wouldn't! He's like my br--" She cut herself off, but the meaning was clear.

"Ah," Ryn said. A sharp edge nicked her finger and she looked up to pry the jagged piece loose with a little more attention.

"We'll hit Ziro's palace tonight," Evinne said restlessly. "He won't be expecting a counterstrike so soon. We'll hit him when he's not looking for us and put him out of business for good."

"Because Cam will obviously be safer in the middle of a battle," Ryn agreed, deadpan.

Evinne scowled at her. "You have a better idea?"

"Infiltrate. Engineer an escape from the inside."

Evinne snorted. "Great. Except Ziro's thugs can identify everybody on my team, and he wants all of us dead. None of us would be able to go undercover there for long."

Ryn leaned on the vibroknife with one hand and grinned down at her.

It took Evinne a long beat to catch up. "_You?_ But surely somebody there can identify you, too."

Ryn gave the hilt of the vibroknife a sharp blow with the heel of her hand. The rest of the fixture broke free and fell into the bowl with a crash.

"Don't worry," she told Evinne. "I have a plan."

Evinne slumped against the bar. "This ought to be good."

~*~*~

In the end, Ryn caught a ride back to the Temple with Ferus on a swoop bike. Given the height at which they were traveling, it was a fairly unorthodox use of the vehicle, and she pointed this out to him with some skepticism as he shrugged out of his cloak and handed it to her to wear so that it wouldn't whip back and hit her in the face as they flew.

Ferus shrugged at her observation. "We probably have your friend Skywalker to thank for that. He's modded several of the Temple transports. It's sort of an obsession of his."

Ferus was trying to keep his voice neutral, but the empty, toneless quality would have given the game away even if she hadn't felt his squirm of discomfort.

Ryn pretended to study Coruscant's nighttime skyline and watched him out of the corner of her eye as she asked, "Not yours?"

Ferus frowned, adjusting something on the speeder. "Not my what?"

"You said _my_ friend Skywalker."

Ferus looked uncomfortable. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that I don't like Anakin."

_I already know that you don't._ "You haven't implied anything. But the choice of words was striking."

Ferus frowned as he mounted the swoop bike. "Skywalker and I have never really gotten along," he admitted. "No matter what the situation is, no matter how good my intentions are ... we always seem to butt heads."

Ryn nodded slowly as she swung up behind him and tried to settle herself so that the unfamiliar cloak wouldn't get caught up in the workings of the swoop bike. "It' a shame. You're both missing out on a good friend."

Ferus didn't turn to face her, but she felt a _ping_ of gratitude. "Thanks. That's ... nice of you." He hesitated, as though he were about to say something else -- maybe even answer her question, but then he broke off, shaking his head, and started the engine.

Disappointed but not surprised, Ryn hooked her arm around his waist for the ride back. "Anytime."

~*~*~

At the Temple, Ryn thanked Ferus and bid him goodnight before slipping down to the Halls of Healing -- staying clear of any Jedi she sensed along the way. She wasn't eager to explain why she was singed and covered in dust and blood. Her inner gravity pulled her to Anakin's recovery room without effort, and she palmed the door open and entered soundlessly.

Obi-Wan was sitting in a chair by the bed, staring at nothing. It took him a few seconds to register her presence, but when he saw her -- or realized what he was seeing -- he managed a faint smile and waved her in, so Ryn crept around the foot of the bed to stand at his shoulder.

She looked down at Anakin, unnaturally pale beneath his tan. "How is he?" she whispered.

"Better," Obi-Wan answered quietly. "There was minor damage to his right kidney, as you suspected, and he lost a lot of blood, but he's been treated and Vokara Che says he'll make a full recovery."

Ryn nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak. The weight of seeing Anakin -- so strong, so lively -- just _lying_ there pressed against her chest and made it hard to breathe.

Obi-Wan frowned at her, sensing her mood. "You don't look all that well yourself."

"I'm fine."

"You should get some rest."

"Soon."

For a moment, Obi-Wan looked as though he might argue. Then, with a sigh that he almost managed to hide, he relented. "Did you get to speak with Dex?"

"Briefly. He's taking it in stride. Most of the debris was gone or sorted for salvage by the time I left, and Dex has a construction crew already scheduled for tomorrow morning, to restore what we couldn't fix ourselves. He said to tell you to come in for a meal when he's open again -- in a couple of days, probably?"

"His estimate?"

"Mine." Seeing Obi-Wan's uncertain look, she added, "I've seen a lot of buildings hit, Master Kenobi. Dex's Diner will be just fine."

Obi-Wan's face was doubtful, but there wasn't much Ryn could do to reassure him if he wasn't willing to trust her judgment, so she let it go for now and turned her attention to Anakin, lying still and uncommonly serene in the medical bed.

"Hard to believe he's such a live wire when he's awake, isn't it?" his master said, and Ryn smiled in acknowledgement.

But ... "He's dreaming," she said softly. "Or maybe having a vision. It's hard to tell."

Obi-Wan looked at her sharply. "How do you know that?"

"Shifts in his emotional state," Ryn murmured. "They have to be a response to some kind of stimuli." She reached out and touched Anakin's hand, lying on top of the blanket, and saw the images rush past.

_Sh_, she whispered into his dream. _Rest. Just rest._

Confusion. _Ryn?_

_I'm here. Rest._

An aching whorl of unarticulated need that Ryn translated as _don't leave me._

_I won't go far._ Carefully she spun a new dream for him, a scene from her home: the hearth in her parents' house at story time, and the soft sound of a flute in the background.

_What is this place?_

_ Where I was born. Rest here a while._ She brushed her mind against his in a caress. _Sweet dreams._

Back in the infirmary, she released Anakin's hand and stepped back to find Obi-Wan watching her curiously.

"Zonama Sekot," Ryn said. "I changed it."

A small furrow of concern formed between Obi-Wan's eyebrows. "You changed his dream? Just like that?"

"I took him to my home," Ryn said. "What's the matter?"

"Ryn, you can't just change another being's dreams. That's ... it's a violation of someone's mind. _Anakin's_ mind."

Ryn stared down at him, trying to rein in the sudden fury that choked her. After all these months, everything she'd been through with the Jedi, it seemed that this, now, was finally too much. Very softly, she said, "You hypocrite."

Obi-Wan's eyes went wide in surprise and -- _admit it, Obi-Wan_ -- anger, but she didn't wait for him to speak. "You can use a Jedi mind-trick to twist another being's thoughts to suit your purposes, but I can't suggest a quieter dream for a friend who is in pain, who hasn't slept through the night in months, maybe _years_?" She drew in a sharp, shuddering breath. "It's a form of _healing_, Obi-Wan. We use it to treat trauma victims and relieve nightmares. To bring a few hours' _peace._"

She stopped, breathless with the knowledge, sharp all over again, of just how little peace Anakin had in his life, and while she was trying to regain some semblance of control, Obi-Wan spoke. "A Jedi finds his own peace."

Anger stabbed her in the ribs and made her eyes bright. "What about _compassion_?" she spat. "You're his master, his mentor, his _teacher_. What in the nine hells are you supposed to be teaching him, if not this?"

"Anakin must walk his own path," Obi-Wan said, watching her frustration with perfect Jedi detachment. "I can only provide discipline, and guidance."

That was one platitude more than Ryn could stand. _"What guidance?"_ she demanded. "I've been with you enough to know. I've seen you. Anakin starts to have _feelings_, and you warn him to _be mindful_, and go on. What does that even mean? He's _mindful,_ all right? If anything he's too damn aware. He doesn't need to pay any more attention, or be any more careful about what the rules are. _He knows._ He needs to learn how to live with his feelings. You're not teaching him that."

"_There is no emotion, there is peace,_" Obi-Wan quoted softly. Sadly. "If Anakin is to be a Jedi, he must learn this."

There was no acceptance in Obi-Wan's eyes, no room for questioning. Not the flicker of a thought that he might be wrong. Just a tired resignation. Either he would train Anakin to relinquish all emotions, or he would fail, and Anakin would be lost to the Jedi Order. And Ryn, standing in the cold white recovery room, looked down at her brilliant, passionate, deeply flawed friend and felt the sickening knowledge rise like bile in her throat: one way or the other, there was no happy ending for the Anakin she knew.

"I'm going to go get cleaned up," she told Obi-Wan, feeling drained and defeated. "I'll be back soon." he touched her fingers lightly to Anakin's once more. "Sweet dreams."


	3. Chapter 3 Quiet Time

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The Random Reader: You reviewed again! Thanks so much! This chapter is a bit of a detour; if you read closely, you'll notice some hints at Attack of the Clones. We'll see more of Obi-Wan soon.

Disclaimer: Wow! Gosh! I don't own Star Wars! And, guess what? I'm not making a profit from writing fanfic!

**CHAPTER THREE - Quiet Time**

Dawn was a rosy glow beyond the Coruscant skyline when Ferus slipped into the infirmary's recovery wing.

The dark-haired girl curled in a chair on the other side of Skywalker's bed looked up, sensing his presence, and Ferus felt the ghost of a smile cross his features.

"I thought I might find you here." He spoke quietly, mindful of the boy sleeping -- or perhaps resting in a Healing trance -- on the bed.

Ryn Orun answered his smile with a faint, crooked one of her own. "I'm just keeping him company."

"I thought Obi-Wan might be here, too."

"The Council summoned him."

Ferus nodded. "They probably want a full briefing."

"Undoubtedly," Ryn agreed. "I wouldn't be surprised if they called one of us next." She reached out and touched the backs of her fingers to the backs of Anakin's, an odd little gesture Ferus didn't recognize. "But I hate to leave him. It's not very friendly down here."

_Only Ryn would describe a place as unfriendly. _ Ferus pulled a chair in from the hallway and sat astride it, Siri-style. "I doubt that these walls and floors are significantly more hostile than any others you've encountered."

That crooked smile again, there and gone again so fast he'd almost missed it. "I mean that it's ... cold. There's not much sense of life." She looked around her with wary, skeptical eyes and shivered. "It seems an odd way to run a place of healing."

"Naturally a rave would be much more conducive to patients' recovery."

A flash of amusement flared in her green eyes. "Was that a joke, Padawan Olin?"

Ferus ducked his head, not quite sure what do with her teasing warmth. "Maybe a little." He heard Ryn's breath whuff out in amusement and jerked his head toward the bed. "Is he going to be okay?"

He wondered whether Ryn knew that she shrank protectively closer to Anakin when he asked the question. "Yes. The Healers did a good job. Now he just needs rest."

"And you're standing guard to make sure he gets it?"

"Something like that."

Skywalker stirred and Ryn leaned over to lay her hand gently atop his. "Sh. Sleep."

Anakin made a soft noise of contentment and sank back into his dreams.

"I guess it really is like that," Ferus said, watching as Ryn eased back into her seat.

Ryn flicked a glance toward her charge. "He's a restless sleeper."

"You spend a lot of time with him when he's sleeping?"

Ryn frowned at his tactless implication. "Sometimes he wakes me up."

Ferus blinked as her meaning sank in. "He wakes you up from _halfway across the Temple?_"

"Keep your voice down," Ryn hissed, as Anakin stirred again. She closed her eyes and concentrated, pressing gentle fingertips to her friend's forehead.

"Sorry," Ferus murmured, when at last she sat back.

Ryn nodded her acceptance of his apology as she shifted in the chair, stretching long legs out in front of her. She looked relaxed, but Ferus could see the faint signs of strain lingering around her mouth, and in the circles beneath her eyes.

"You look tired," he observed quietly.

Ryn shrugged loosely; her wrists draped limply over the arms of her chair, giving her a languid appearance despite the watchfulness in her bright eyes. "It's been a busy couple of weeks."

"And you've almost died twice."

"You'd think I'd be used to it by now," Ryn agreed.

"That has to leave a mark."

There was a flicker of something in her eyes then: not quite fear, but more than her usual quiet watchfulness. A hint of some dark knowledge she wasn't ready to share. "I'm healing."

_So something _is_ wrong._ "Shouldn't you see a Healer yourself?"

Ryn's gaze sharpened almost painfully. "And say what? 'I'm running out of lives: do you have any in stock'?" There was a sharp edge in her voice that Ferus hadn't heard before. She shifted again, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees and scrub her fingers through her wealth of glossy, impossibly black hair. "Dying young is the price of courage," she said quietly. Matter-of-fact. "I used to think it was harsh. Now I wonder if the dead aren't the lucky ones. If outliving everyone you've cared about isn't harder than dying for them." She lifted her head, saw Ferus watching her in consternation, and let out a soft, bitter laugh. "Sorry. That was ... maudlin."

"But understandable," Ferus pointed out. "I can't imagine what that must have been like. Your childhood, I mean. The Creche here at the Temple always felt so safe."

Ryn smiled at him then, letting go her sharpness, leaning casually back again. "Really?"

"Yeah." Ferus hesitated, not sure how to frame what he wanted to ask. "You and Anakin. You both had ... very different childhoods."

"Can't argue with that."

"Is that ... do you think that's why you're so close? Because you have that childhood in common?"

Ryn looked startled for a second; then she laughed softly. "Only a Jedi," she murmured. "Only a Jedi would think that a slave boy from Tatooine and a princess from a planet at war would have a childhood in common." Her laughter stilled, mirth fading away as she tried to sort through his question. "I suppose both of us learned to expect ... certain things ... from life. I think we share a lot of assumptions about the meaning of friendship. The same values about love and family. But the only place those concepts could be unique to us is the Jedi Temple." She caught the look on Ferus's face and sighed. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to laugh at you, Ferus. It's just ... to me, the only way our childhoods look similar is by contrast to a Temple upbringing. It's a comparison that's meaningless to its subjects." She tilted her head to one side, watching him with bemused interest. "I don't see the younglings much. Can you tell me what it was like, growing up here?"

"What do you want to know?"

Ryn turned her hands palms-up in an odd version of a shrug. "Anything. What your duties were, where you spent your free time, how you made friends. Tell me what you remember most, what mattered to you."

"It's not very interesting."

"It was your childhood. I'm interested." She hooked a foot around the leg of his chair, drawing him closer with no visible effort, despite the difference in their sizes. "Tell me all about the Creche, Ferus."


	4. Chapter 4 Your Brilliant Plan

A/N: Ani and Ryn have a disagreement. And then Ryn has a brilliant plan ... sort of.

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, nor am I receiving any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER FOUR -- Your Brilliant Plan **

Soft laughter. "I can't believe you did that."

An answering snort. "Well, I guess learned my lesson. I've pretty much toed the line ever since."

A familiar presence brushed Anakin's mind: the first voice. _Ryn._

A wave of reassurance. _I'm right here. And you're supposed to be sleeping._

Anakin made a wordless protest, shying away from the dream she was trying to show him.

He felt rather than heard her laughter this time. He thought it might be his new favorite sound. Something soft brushed against his skin, pulling him over the line from dream to waking, and he opened his eyes.

"Hey." That was Ryn, leaning over him with a slight smile. She wasn't wearing her usual mask of reserve, and her love for him shone in her eyes and eased the tension at the corners of her mouth. It made her look ... not weak, but softer than he was used to, more welcoming, water in a desert, and Anakin reached to touch her without thinking.

Ryn gave him a quizzical look, but she didn't resist as his fingers traced the curve of her waist. She turned slightly to sit sidesaddle on the bed, her hip brushing against his.

For several long seconds Anakin said nothing, drowsily content to touch the smooth skin, cooler than his own, between the waistband of her pants and that odd wrapping shirt Evinne had given her. Ryn didn't say anything, either: just sat there watching him with a mixture of curiosity and affection alight in her eyes.

_Kiss me._

Amusement pulled up one corner of Ryn's mouth in her fleeting smile. "You're still a little punchy," she observed.

"'m not," Anakin muttered. He went back to looking at her. "So beautiful when you smile."

The smile again, a little wider this time. "Definitely still punchy. I kind of like it, though."

Anakin grinned at her, still feeling the warmth of the dream under his breastbone. "You were in my dream."

Ryn blinked at the change of subject. "Well ... yes. I wove a dream for you. I hope you don't mind. Obi-Wan tells me it's not an accepted Jedi practice." A shadow of something crossed her face then, and Anakin wondered what exactly his master had said.

"No. I liked it."

"Good. You needed some sleep." She shifted, looking uncomfortable. "Anyway, I'm not your only company this morning." She leaned to one side so Anakin could see over her shoulder. Ferus came down a little while ago, and Obi-Wan should be back soon."

_Ferus. What is _he_ doing here?_

Ryn must have known what he was thinking -- Ryn _always_ knew -- because she gave him a warning frown before reaching for the bedside table to pour him a glass of water.

Behind Ryn, Ferus approached the bed and bowed slightly while Anakin sipped from the glass Ryn handed. "I'm glad you're feeling better, Anakin."

Anakin scowled at him. "Thanks."

Ferus looked discomfited, put off by his tone. "I guess I'll go tell the Healers you're awake."

Ryn shot Anakin a hard look. But her tone was neutral when she spoke to his fellow Padawan. "That's probably a good idea. Thanks, Ferus."

As soon as Ferus was out of sight, Ryn turned and smacked Anakin on the arm. Hard.

"Ow!"

"Serves you right, nerfherder! There was no need to be so surly with Ferus! He was trying to be nice."

"_Trying_," Anakin said, rolling his eyes.

"He was doing fine. You're the one acting like a bantha with a sore foot." Ryn shook her head. "Look. I know you have some sort of rivalry, but you're not acting right."

"That's easy for you to say. You don't know how he --"

"Anakin, I don't need to. I know how _you_ behaved, just now, and it was wrong. Period. So get it together, and when Ferus comes back, act like the generous, compassionate man I know you can be. No excuses."

Anakin met her uncompromising stare, opened his mouth to protest, and fond his shoulders tightly gripped while Ryn's brilliant green eyes bored into his.

"You can be better than this, Anakin," she said, her voice an intense whisper. "_I know it._" A tight little breath stuttered through her. "You just have to try. I'll help you."

"I don't need your help," Anakin snapped, trying to sit up.

"Well, you need _somebody's_," Ryn retorted. "You can't go around treating your fellow Jedi like rivals. That's a recipe for disaster. You're going to have to find another way." She let go his shoulders and touched his face with her fingertips, softening. "Stop trying to be better than everybody else and start trying to be a better you."

Anakin reached up to catch her hand. "What do you --"

Vokara Che swept into the room, and the moment was broken. He couldn't ask Ryn what she meant in front of other Jedi. He pushed her away and sat up, and Ryn, her sharply chiseled face tight with hurt and disappointment, retreated to stand hunched against the wall with her arms wrapped tightly around her recently healed ribs.

"I thought I said I didn't want to see you for a while," Vokara Che said to her, and Ryn nodded jerkily without meeting her eyes.

Che's headtails twitched in surprise, and she glanced at Anakin for an answer, but Anakin wasn't about to attempt an explanation.

Ferus, entering on Vokara Che's heels, frowned at them both. "Ryn? Are you ... all right?"

"I'm fine," Ryn said, obviously trying to sound strong and only managing to sound surly as a result.

Ferus lifted an eyebrow at her. "If you say so. Look, why don't we wait in the hallway? Give Anakin some privacy."

"Oh." Ryn blinked. Apparently the notion of privacy hadn't occurred to her. Given what he knew of Lorethan living habits, Anakin wasn't entirely surprised. Another time, she'd have remembered the local difference and adjusted her behavior accordingly; under stress, she forgot. "Well ... sure."

Anakin watched them leave together, pretty sure he'd just done everything wrong.

"This is your brilliant plan?" Evinne said, aghast.

Ryn looked down at her skimpy attire. "What's wrong with it?"

"Well, it's an _outfit,_ not a _plan._"

Ryn scowled at her. "It's a disguise."

Evinne sized her up again. "As what?"

"Myself."

"Are you having amnesia? We did this last week."

"Which is why I think it'll work."

Evinne rolled her eyes. "Okay. So how are you getting into Ziro's compound?"

Ryn shot her a grin. "Straight through the front door."

"Oh, good. Because no one will notice that."

"They'd better," Ryn said "I'm going to make a lot of noise."

Evinne closed her eyes. "Shorty, you do not have to do this. We'll find another way to get Cam back."

"Except we don't have to, because this will work." Ryn caught the older girl's look and sighed. "Okay, it might not. But it stands a chance. And it minimizes bloodshed and circumvents the bureaucracy. Plus, with any luck, I can find out something about this sudden interest in the weapons trade while I'm in there. It's a good shot, Evinne."

"I don't like dragging you into this."

Ryn stopped in the act of hiding a vibroknife in her boot. "I volunteered. Look, you said it yourself: you don't have anybody Ziro won't order shot on sight. I'm the only one who can do it." She secured the blade and straightened. "Don't worry. I can take care of myself."

"You've been beaten to a pulp twice in the last two weeks! And let's not even start on the poisoning."

"Extenuating circumstances." Ryn checked her utility belt one more time and looked up. "I'm ready."

They had another version of the same argument on the way to the transport pool.

"And explain to me again why you're not telling the Jedi? Skywalker seemed to think they could do something."

"Skywalker was wrong." Ryn decided not to mention that this was a regular occurrence. "The Jedi can't sneeze without the approval of the Senate, which they'll never get because too many of the Senators take advantage of Ziro's services. And if the Jedi make a move without proof, _they_ will be the ones in the hot seat. I will get that proof. And Cam."

"So you're going to steal a transport from the Jedi Temple, fly it to Ziro's palace, and -- what, exactly?"

"Well, for starters, I'm going to make a stop at the Outlander first and pick up an invitation."

"Based on what, your dazzling charm?"

"That, too." Sensing Evinne's genuine concern, Ryn relented. "Ziro has a side interest in illegal gambling, right? Betting on the obstacle races and stuff?"

"Yes."

"So I'll let it be known I'm looking for a piece of the action."

"As a pilot?"

"Do I look crazy?"

"You don't want me to answer that."

"Okay, fine. As an ill-advised party girl."

Evinne looked skeptical.

"Look, I already have a wild reputation, thanks to Malastare. Sagacious bounty hunter would be more my style, I'll admit, but I'm _thirteen._ Nobody would be it. This will work. Almost definitely."

Evinne wasn't exactly radiating confidence, but as they reached the transport pool she took a deep breath and nodded. "Get ready. Here comes your distraction."

Ryn waited in the passage until she could hear Evinne's theatrical demands to have her airspeeder returned and then slipped through the doors and darted for the swoop bikes.


	5. Chapter 5 Plan B, Anyone?

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, nor am I making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

A/N: the chronology of this chapter might be a little hard to follow. There's a lot of flashing back and forth. Try to think of it this way: Every time the POV switches to a new character, it's a "meanwhile ..." I'll try to use somewhat more standard chronology in the next chapter.

**CHAPTER FIVE -- Plan B, Anyone?**

_ "What's the matter? What did he say to you?" _

_ "Nothing. I'm fine." _

_ "I can tell you're upset."_

_ "I'm just tired."_

Ryn rubbed her eyes with one hand and steered her swoop bike -- her _stolen_ swoop bike -- with the other, trying to drag her mind into concentration on the task at hand. She had stonewalled Ferus until he'd given up, and then Vokara Che had come out and they'd both gone back in to ask Anakin about the verdict. He'd been healthy and ready to leave, and he'd been behaving himself, tense but polite. But then Ferus had turned to her and said, "Ryn, why don't you go get Anakin a change of clothes?" And Ryn had gone, because she had been unable to think of any reason for _not_ going that wouldn't sound like _I don't trust him with you_.

When she got back, she'd found that the situation had deteriorated into some sort of standoff, and Ryn hadn't known what to do. So she'd handed Anakin his clothes with uncertain fingers and practically jumped out of her skin when Ferus said "Excuse me," in an icy tone that Ryn didn't recognize and stalked off.

_"What did you tell him?" _

_ "Nothing!" _

_ "Don't lie to me." _

_ "I'm not! He asked me what _you'd_ said and I told him 'nothing'. He said he could tell I was upset and I said I was just tired. Why are you so suspicious? I'm your friend!" _

_ "Yeah, well, I don't need your kind of friendship." _

_ Panic, rising cold in Ryn's throat. "Anakin?" _

_ "I'll see you later." _

Ryn had hated to leave it like that, but Anakin clearly hadn't been ready to talk, and she hadn't been able to think of any way to make things better.

"I love you," she'd whispered, bereft; and then she'd turned and walked out of the infirmary to focus on her mission, because there was a boy's life at stake and maybe she could at least help Cam.

And now she was ... _here_, pulling the swoop bike into a public parking lot not far from the Outlander Club.

_Time to focus._

The Jedi Council commed him before he could even finish pulling on his clothes. He delivered his report in the Council chambers and then made it all the way to the quarters he shared with Obi-Wan before he was finally able to admit that he was as angry at himself as he was at Ryn.

He couldn't stop seeing the look on her face, there at the end. Recoiling as though he'd hit her.

When she'd left, the only thing she'd said: _I love you._

And he'd stood there and watched her go. _What was I thinking?_

A little voice inside whispered that he'd been angry, that he'd let his temper get the best of him (again). But his friendship with Ryn meant more than being right about Ferus. Didn't it? _It has to._

His mind made up, Anakin turned around and headed back out into the Temple corridors. He took a lift up to Ryn's floor and stalked to her door, ready to say he was sorry, that she was wrong about Ferus but it didn't matter, that their friendship meant so much more. That he loved her, too, and he hadn't meant to say those awful things.

_I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Ryn, I didn't mean it ..._

He hit the door release without tapping the chime, because Ryn always knew when he was there.

She wasn't in the front room.

"Ryn!" he called, heading for the kitchen in case she was making breakfast after a rough night.

She wasn't there.

A sense of foreboding crept into his throat. He ran to Ryn's bedroom anyway. Checked Evinne's room and the 'fresher. Empty.

And if Ryn wasn't here, then where could she be except ... with Ferus?

Distantly he knew he was leaping to conclusions. The Temple was a big place; Ryn could be anywhere. But in his heart, it didn't feel that way. In his heart, he felt betrayed, felt the ache of knowing that without him, she'd turn to Ferus -- because he was kind, and calm, and because Ryn didn't care if he was boring and followed procedures too carefully, probably for the same reasons that she didn't care if Anakin was too reckless and impatient. Things like that didn't matter to her. In his heart, he knew that it was his own fault, that he'd driven her away.

The knowledge settled in him like lead and weakened his knees, and he sat down, hard, on the edge of Ryn's bed and put his head in his hands.

Evinne made sure Ryn had a good start and then gave over arguing with the transport droid with a last, huffy "I'll-take-this-all-the-way-to-Master Yoda" so she could move on to bigger and better things that hopefully involved a lot less melodramatic acting. It wasn't exactly her favorite way to spend a dismal Coruscant morning.

All mornings on Coruscant were dismal, as far as Evinne could tell. Even when there was sunlight, it was reflected from enormous mirrored satellites; better than half of it, anyway. And then there was the smog. Sometimes the atmospheric scrubbers deployed around the planet handled it, in which case it smelled faintly of ozone; sometimes they didn't, in which case the entire planet reeked of all the kinds of waste produced by a trillion or so beings living in close quarters on artificial everything. Aesin'Evinne Ardel had been to some unsavory locations: Nar Shaddaa (she wasn't eager to repeat that one), Evsorna Prime, Tatooine with its damn spaceport. She'd seem of some the nastiest places the Outer Rim had to offer. But none of them came close to the hive of greed, corruption, and all-around villainy that was Coruscant.

_Don't think about it. Just do your job._

The Jedi Temple should theoretically be better. It was, at least, _cleaner_ than anywhere else Evinne had seen on this planet so far. But it was _cold_, in ways she hadn't learned to wrap her mind around: none of the fire and passion, good and bad, that she associated with sentient beings.

_I almost prefer the spice-dealers._

That wasn't quite fair, she knew. The Jedi meant well. They really believed that releasing their emotions was the surest path to clarity and a stronger connection to the force, which they evidently thought would make them better: wiser, more just and moral. Evinne didn't quite see how that would work, since the Sith ostensibly had equally strong Force connections and yet, according to the Jedi, committed all sorts of heinous crimes as a matter of course.

_Maybe Ryn gets it._

But Evinne didn't really think that was the case. There was a bleakness in Ryn's eyes now, as though she knew her task was hopeless and yet she refused to quit. Not even the Chiss Incursion had done that to her.

_At least she has Skywalker._ The pretty Jedi boy wasn't exactly Evinne's type -- she preferred someone older, rougher, more experienced -- but he clearly seemed to be hitting all the right buttons for Ryn. Well, maybe not _all_ of them, not yet. She was pretty sure they hadn't gone all the way so far, but there was every reason to hope that they would, given time and opportunity. And that would be a good thing. Ryn was wound a little too tight; she could use somebody to turn her upside down and make her scream.

Well, maybe. Slow and loving was sounded more like Skywalker's style. That boy was born to love. But Ryn could probably learn to live with that.

She was headed for her room in the quarters she'd been sharing with Ryn when she saw that Ryn's door was open.

_That's not right. We closed that door._

Evinne eased her lightsaber free -- they'd let her keep it after the battle, thanks mostly to Kenobi's insistence -- and stepped up to the door to peek in.

Anakin Skywalker lay curled on his side with his face in Ryn's pillow, apparently asleep.

Evinne hesitated. If he was curled up on the bed, he was probably waiting for Ryn, which was pointless, because Ryn wouldn't be back for a while -- hours, for sure, maybe days if she got an in to stay at Ziro's palace. But she couldn't very well tell Skywalker that without revealing that Ryn had left the Temple without permission in order to conduct an unauthorized investigation that would probably result in some illegal violence.

_So ... not a good idea._

Evinne backed carefully out of the room and deactivated her lightsaber, then made tracks for the arboretum, intending to be nowhere nearby when Skywalker woke up.

Unlike many of Coruscant's clubs, the Outlander did not close when the sun came up. There was still business to be conducted during the daytime hours, and though the clientele changed, the space itself remained relatively busy.

Of course, the daytime clients weren't there just to drink, gamble, and live it up, so Ryn wasn't surprised when he bouncer gave her a hard time.

She _was_ surprised that the bouncer was Quinlan Vos.

"Ryn Orun," he said flatly, his lips thinning into a line. "What are you doing here?"

Ryn tried to glance past him into the club. "I could ask you the same question."

Vos's eyes hardened. "Don't play games with me. The Outlander in the daytime is no place for a kid."

"Good thing I'm not a kid, then," Ryn answered, refusing to be intimidated. "I know what I'm doing." _Maybe._

"You don't know bantha spit," Vos growled. "And neither does Kenobi, if he sent you down here alone." _Okay, look at the bright side. At least he hasn't deduced that I snuck out of the Temple on a stolen swoop bike._ "Get back to the Temple and tell Obi-Wan that whatever he's trying to do, he'd better get a new plan. I'm not letting you in there."

Ryn read his determination and scowled. Starting a fight with Vos as Ziro's bouncer would not be a good way to make her entrance. And it would go over at the Temple like a rencor at a birthday party. "I scan," she said finally, taking a step back. "Give Ziro my regards."

_I'm going to need a Plan B._


	6. Chapter 6 Hate It When I'm Right

Disclaimer: Jedi Master George Lucas owns _Star Wars._ I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction. But oh, am I having fun ... :)

**CHAPTER SIX -- Hate It When I'm Right**

_Meanwhile, back at the Temple ..._

The sound of Anakin's commlink beeping woke him.

He fumbled for it hastily, still half-asleep. "Skywalker here."

"Padawan Skywalker, Master Yoda this is."

_Yoda_ was comming him? "Yes, Master?"

"Looking for young Orun are we. With you, is she?"

"Uh ... no, Master. She's not here." _In her own quarters. Where I am._

"Know you where she might be?"

A stab of pain, still tainted with anger, caught Anakin under the ribs. "You might check with Padawan Olin, Master."

"Thank you, young Skywalker. Appreciate your help, the Council does. Yoda out."

Anakin shut off the commlink and dropped back on to Ryn's pillow. It smelled like her, fresh and clean and a little sweet. He remembered coming in here to wake her -- had it just been a week ago? -- and seeing her black hair flung careless over the white pillowcase, the sheet pulled up high as she snuggled deeper. Her smile, when she opened her eyes and saw him waiting. The whole room felt like her, in the Force: like the scent of flowers on a distant breeze. Anakin could almost feel her, in the bed beside him. Except, of course, they had no business being in bed together.

Or kissing, as they'd done in the next room.

Anakin felt an unexpected stir at the memory and winced. He wasn't supposed to be thinking like that about Ryn, she was his _friend_ ... but she hadn't seemed to mind the kiss.

He was definitely hard now, and it occurred to him that here, now, surrounded by that soft, feminine scent, would be a really good time to take care of some business.

Except that Ryn would kill if she found out what he'd been doing in her bedroom. Or, knowing Ryn, possibly offer to help him. Either way, he really shouldn't be doing _that_, here. Even if it did sound kind of good.

_Morals, Skywalker. You should get some._

Anakin groaned and sat up. It was clearly not good for him to be lying here. Maybe the sheets had absorbed some of that Lorethan sensuality. Or pheromones. Or something.

_I should go._

He rolled to his feet and made it as far as tiny hallway that led to the bathroom before he heard the door open.

"Ryn?" Anakin stepped out into the living area. "I was just --"

He stopped dead, because it wasn't Ryn. It was Ferus.

"Anakin," Ferus said. "I was looking for Ryn."

_Which would be why you came to her quarters._

Anakin cleared his throat. "She wasn't with you?"

Ferus shook his head minutely. "I haven't seen her since I left the infirmary." He gestured at the door. "I thought maybe her comm was off. I sensed .. unhappiness." He looked at Anakin, standing his his arms folded, and dropped his eyes. "Oh. It wasn't her."

Anakin chose not to comment on Ferus's perceptions. "She's not here."

"And you don't know where she might go?"

"The arboretum, maybe." Anakin closed his eyes, stretched out with his senses to find Ryn, but though he could feel that she was _alive,_ out there somewhere, his senses slid off of her without gaining a purchase. It took him several attempts to realize what this meant. "She's blocking me."

"She probably wants some privacy," Ferus said. "But if the Council is asking for her, it will just have to wait." He paused. "I'm going to check the arboretum. You coming?"

[]

It was a windy day on Coruscant, and the climate controls hadn't entirely succeeded in preventing a thin, yellow-gray cover of drifting clouds that quavered weakly in the upper levels of the city, threatening toxic rain. Ryn shivered as she eased her swoop bike to a stop on a broken rooftop amid an assortment of others, most of them featuring illegal modifications, from enhanced repulsorlifts to rigged weaponry.

Ryn put up a hand to hold her whipping hair back from her face and examined the vehicles with a critical eye as she stood still for a moment, letting her chilled skin get used to the buffeting winds. _Yeah. These folks are the cream of the crop. Real philanthropists._

Over the dull _whup_ of the wind in her ears, Ryn heard another noise, mechanical, and crept to the edge of the roof, kneeling behind an up-torn sheet of durasteel roofing so she could peer down without skylining herself.

Below -- maybe five hundred meters -- a series of heavily modified swoops revved in place, showing off. Watching them, Ryn whistled softly through her teeth. _Those things would probably give Anakin a wet dream._

The thought of Anakin burned her like a hot poker through the heart, but she pushed the pain aside. Anakin would come around, or he wouldn't. She hadn't done anything wrong, not this time. If she got back to the Temple, they could talk it out.

_Assuming he's still talking to me at all._

_ Worry about Anakin later. Do something about the guy sneaking up behind you now._

She spun a half-circle as she swept her blaster clear of its tied-down holster, and came to a stop with the barrel pointed squarely at the center of a Gamorrean chest.

Ryn had never quite managed to get over her visceral reaction to Gamorreans. She knew that it wasn't rational, but to her they always looked -- and _smelled_ -- like something out of a nightmare. It probably didn't help that all the Gamorreans she had actually _met_ had been working for Hutt gangsters. Or that a couple of them had passed one memorable night torturing her for information. And fun.

_Easy, soldier. This fellow's just doing his job._ She took a deep breath and eased her grip on the trigger.

The Gamorrean snarled something in garbled Huttese, and Ryn shook her head. "Sorry. Basic?"

He growled and waved his blaster -- the one he'd been too slow to fire when she moved -- at her.

"Basic!" Ryn repeated, but then she realized that it might a futile request. She couldn't remember that Gamorreans who'd tortured her speaking any Basic -- the human had done most of the talking. Could Gamorrean snouts even form the phonemes of Basic? She didn't know.

He was waving the blaster some more, again probably not a good sign.

On the other hand, he hadn't started shooting yet, so it could be worse.

He waved the blaster again.

"I don't know what you want!" Ryn shouted, as though increased volume were the key to communication.

He fired off a shot, and Ryn ducked and fired her own weapon, slagging the blaster in his hand.

"Stop! Stop, just ... stop." Frustrated, Ryn pointed over the rim of the ruined rooftop to where the swoops were changing their pitch -- about to start the race, no doubt. "Look, I just want to see the races, yeah? I want to watch." She pointed at herself, then down again. Still not sure whether he understood her Basic, she made a walking motion with two fingers, then tapped her chest. "I want to see."

The Gamorrean tossed his head -- at least, she _thought_ it was a _he_ -- and made a slavering noise that might have meant anything from _sure _to _you look like dinner._ He was throwing off a lot of aggression, but without a baseline for the _species_ much less the individual, Ryn couldn't really tell what that meant.

_Great. Did I anger the gods when I wasn't looking?_

"I don't exactly what you're saying," Ryn told him warily, "but I want to let you know up front that I am not a good breakfast item."

The Gamorrean made a noise that Ryn definitely recognized as laughter. _Progress._

"Look," she said, "I just want to go see the races." She tried to look harmless, which wasn't easy since she was still holding a blaster on him. "That's not bad, right? You want people to come see the races and place bets. That's kind of the point, yeah?"

He barked at her again, in what she thought was Huttese, gesturing at her utility belt. She caught one word: _Jedi_.

_My lightsaber._ "_No,_" she said forcefully. "I am not a Jedi. I come from a place called Loreth. Many of my people carry these weapons."

He snarled at her again, disbelieving, and Ryn repeated firmly: "not a Jedi."

Something in her expression must have got through, because the Gamorrean made a different noise this time, the tone more conversational even though Ryn still had no idea what he was saying, and backed away, motioning for her to follow.

He was heading for a crack in the roof that was probably where he'd come up. It yawned dark and uninviting, and the Gamorrean wasn't exactly giving off trustworthy vibes.

_My sense of self-preservation needs a tune-up,_ Ryn thought, eyeing the hole with distaste. But she went with him anyway.

[]

The crack opened into the ruins of what had probably once been a service shaft of some kind, possibly for industrial lifts. Now it was a long dark pit that vanished into nothingness.

_I hate heights and I'm afraid of the dark,_ Ryn thought. _So of course this would be the place._

She eyed the Gamorrean with more than a little skepticism. He motioned for her to go forward and she bared her teeth. "No, really, after you."

The Gamorrean glared at her, sending off a definite ripple of unease. _Yeah, that's what I thought._

She stood back and motioned with her blaster, forcing the issue. She didn't know what sort of booby trap awaited below, but the Gamorrean must have thought it was marginally less dangerous than her blaster, because he went over the edge -- with great reluctance -- and began to descend, hand-over-hand, down a thick black cord that looked suspiciously new. Ryn holstered her blaster -- not without some reluctance of her own -- and followed.

As they descended, Ryn could see a murky light at the bottom, between her booted feet and past the Gamorrean's head. It didn't look like natural light, exactly, so Ryn guessed it had to be either dim artificial lighting or radiant energy in the visible spectrum from a nearby source. Given the echoes coming up from below, Ryn was willing to postulate some kind of lighting in a repair pit, but it was hard to be sure of anything, except that the Gamorrean's anxiety was increasing palpably. He was whimpering to himself now, twitching so that the cord jerked painfully in Ryn's hands.

"Hey," she called down to him, "relax. I'm sure it's not like your friends are down there waiting to shoot the first thing that falls out of this hole."

"The Gamorrean gave a particularly violent shudder and Ryn smiled grimly to herself. _I hate it when I'm right._

Three meters or so from the opening, her companion started squealing and snarling words she didn't recognize but didn't feel good about. She had a nasty hunch they went something like: _don't shoot, she's behind me._

So when he dropped to the floor and beckoned for her to follow, Ryn grimaced and proceeded very slowly as he backed away, out of sight.

_This is going to take some careful timing,_ she thought, narrowing her eyes at the opening in displeasure. _And remarkably good luck._

Just inside the opening, she braced her feet against one wall and her back against the other and ignited her lightsaber, hearing the familiar snap-hiss that always brought more memories, good and bad, than she knew how to deal with. Then she tilted the lightsaber blade-down, so that the brilliant green bar of energy stuck out below.

Blaster bolts flared through the space, and Ryn's lightsaber twisted to catch most of them and deflect them back. It was a dangerous move, since return trajectories were hard to get right and she had very little idea of who or what she might be sending them into; but somehow Ryn doubted that the space below was home to a creche full of innocents. Plus she _did_ know what would happen if she dropped down so she could see.

The storm of blasterfire tapered off and Ryn set her teeth. _Now for the hard part._ She worked her blaster free with her right hand and some difficulty, considering the angle, and then, lightsaber in one hand and blaster in the other, she tucked her knees and dropped.

More blasterfire, which Ryn deflected in quick, economical motions, using her own blaster to slag weapons and cut down on the fire. The Gamorrean was shrieking again, gesturing wildly to his buddies -- two other Gamorreans, a pair of Rodians, and a Dug. they didn't seem to be all that interested in whatever he was saying, so Ryn chose to ignore it, too.

Finally one of the Rodians barked a command and the blasterfire stopped. Ryn held still, lightsaber at the ready, blaster trained on the Dug, who was looking twitchy.

The Rodian, evidently their leader, spoke to her in Huttese. Ryn caught a few words and shook her head. "Basic?"

"Ah ... yes," the Rodian said slowly. "Why ... has a Jedi come here?"

"I am not a Jedi," Ryn said firmly. "I am from Loreth. Many of my people carry lightsabers."

"I ... not heard of Loreth."

"It is far from here, in Wild Space."

"And full of lightsabers?"

"There are many." Ryn gestured with her blaster. "I came to see the races, maybe place a bet. I guess you don't like surprise guests."

"Ah ... _invitation_ is ... required."

Ryn made what she was sure was a sorry attempt at a smile. "I'm here now. So why don't you invite me?"

"Not ... my decision. I take you to ... Lord Ziro."

_Ziro is _here_? Personally?_ "Thank you."

The Rodian chittered a laugh. "No ... thank me. Ziro ... not pleased."

Ryn widened the smile. "Then I'll just have to please him."


	7. Chapter 7  Something I've Got to Do

Here's a super-short chapter, told in snippets. If this were a movie, it'd be a montage, lol. Anyway ... I hope you enjoy, and please do let me know if you did/didn't. :)

Disclaimer: So ... Star Wars kind of belongs to George Lucas, which is a relief, because I wouldn't want the responsibility. I'm not even making any money from this piece of fanfiction, although I am having a swell time writing it. :)

CHAPTER SEVEN:

She'd been right about the lights showing part of a repair bay, although this area was clearly for more serious damage than what would be repaired in the regular pits at the front. The thugs -- she supposed they must be Ziro's guards, which meant that he was more deeply involved in the racing racket than she'd been led to believe -- led Ryn out of the dimly-lit area and down a set of makeshift stairs to a wide shallow bay created by the absence of an outer wall and framed by the partial collapse of the one behind, shorn up at intervals with various kinds of flotsam.

Against the back of this bay, or an enormous repulsor-powered sofa awash in shimmersilk pillows, stretched an obese, monopod being Ryn could only assume to be Ziro the Hutt.

The Rodian she'd spoken with made his report in Huttese while Ryn stood still, surrounded by guards. Whatever he said, it had Ziro giggling like a little girl and bobbing in place so that his feathered head ornament danced wildly.

He waved the Rodian aside, the guards parting so that he could look Ryn over.

Another giggle. "Heh. You have a name, young intruder?" he asked in Basic.

Ryn drew herself a little straighter. "Ryn Orun."

"From Loreth?"

"Yes. We have had dealings before, although not face-to-face."

"How is it that I was not immediately introduced to such a ... ah .. fine specimen of humanity?"

Ryn managed not to roll her eyes. Barely. "I believe your employees were distracted by their attempts to kill me." She shrugged. "Just business, of course."

Ziro cackled. "A lady who understands business! Delightful. But now I understand that you are here for pleasure."

"For the races, yes," Ryn answered, refusing to glance over her shoulder at the Gamorrean who was holding a blaster on her. "Although I'm told they can be quite profitable."

"It's true that sometimes those who enjoy a good race will place a small wager," Ziro allowed. "But it's a risky thing."

Ryn tossed her hair over her shoulder. "What's life without risk?"

[~]

Standing in the middle of Ryn's living room, Anakin froze, struck by a sudden, inexplicable Bad Feeling.

Ferus watched him expectantly, waiting for him to say _yeah, I'm coming,_ because Ryn was his best friend and he'd want to be there for her.

Except ... _She's not going to be in the arboretum._

And Anakin had a sudden, sickening suspicion that he knew exactly where Ryn had gone.

"Anakin?"

Anakin worded his dry mouth, too distracted to be irritated with Ferus. "You go. I ... There's something I have to do."

[~]

Anakin made a quick stop at the Temple supply room, picking up a poncho to cover his Jedi gear and a bandana to hide his Padawan braid.

Cheaply disguised, he slipped over an unwatched garden wall and headed for the nearest public transit station.

[~-

Sitting in a private booth in the Archives, Obi-Wan sighed and answered his commlink without looking at it. "Kenobi here."

"Yoda, this is, Obi-Wan. Answering her commlink, young Orun is not. Failed to find her, Ferus Olin has. Appreciate it, the Council would, if take over the search your apprentice did."

"Of course, Master." _Ryn what are you doing?_ "I will contact Anakin immediately."

"Thank you, young Obi-Wan."

Anakin took his time answering Obi-Wan's comm.

"Yes, Master?"

"Anakin, the Council is waiting for Ryn to report and no one seems to know where she is. She's not answering her commlink. Do you think you could look for her?"

"That's what I'm doing, Master."

"Well, as soon as you find her, bring her to the Council chambers. And tell her to keep an eye on that commlink. The Council didn't issue it so she could answer coms only when she felt like it."

"All right." Pause. "It, uh ... it might be a while."

_I don't like the sound of that._ "What do you mean?"

Another pause, longer this time. Noise in the background, someone swearing. "Master, did she say anything to you about going after that boy? Cam?"

"The one Ziro's men kidnapped last night? No."

"Did you find that at all ... strange?"

Obi-Wan took a minute to process that. "You think she went after him alone?" That couldn't be right. "Or with Ev -- wait a minute." _Bad feeling, bad feeling, bad feeling ..._ "Anakin, where are you?"

"I'm, uh, not exactly sure, Master."

_What???_ "Anakin, what do you --"

Shouting, not all of it in Basic. "I have to go now, Master."

The connection closed.

_Definitely a bad feeling._


	8. Chapter 8 Ziro's Pleasure Palace

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I'm just a plan, playing irresponsibly with his characters (and a few of my own) and not getting paid for it.

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

Ryn hadn't been crazy about the Podracing arenas on Malastare. They were filthy, dnagerous, and full of criminals. But at least they were mostly intact and hadn't reeked of Hutt. This place ... not so much.

The races themselves she might have enjoyed, if the death rate had been just a little lower, or if she had been less convinced that the whole experience was rigged.

Or if she hadn't been quite so worried about finding Cam.

She'd come because she knew Ziro had a stake in the obstacle races, and she figured that meant he'd have someone on hand, and she might be able to coax an invitation back to the compound out of this person. She'd thought that walking in with an invitation would be easier than breaking in through a window or vent.

But after only half an hour in Ziro's company, she was beginning to revise her opinion.

She hadn't had any noticeable success yet, but that wasn't really the problem. Ziro's thoughts were spilling all over the place, and Ryn was privvy to more than she'd like. He was very eager to have her come hang around his compound and look dangerous and expensive, so it seemed likely that an invitation would be forthcoming if she could just manage to stay put for a little longer without throttling him.

He was also anxious for her to take off her clothes.

Ryn wasn't deluded enough to think that Ziro was attracted to her. On the contrary, she could feel that he found her as repellent as she did him. But surrounded with humanoids, Ziro had developed a fine eye for the trophy woman, and he thought she might fit the bill. She could almost see him ticking off the points in his head: "Young - yes. Fit - yes. Symmetrical features - yes." He even gave her long black hair a favorable appraisal.

A young Twi'lek woman stepped forward and put a drink in Ryn's hand with a calculated simper that Ryn felt sure wasn't for her benefit.

"Compliments of Lord Ziro," the Twi'lek murmured, headtails twitching. "Is there anything else you require for your comfort?"

Ryn probed gently and found a muted misery that suggested there were many places the Twi'lek would rather be. "Some company?" she suggested, trying to look friendly.

The Twi'lek nodded. "I can arrange that. What are your preferences?"

Ryn blinked. "My preferences?"

"Species, sex, and age."

Ryn tried not to gag as her meaning sank in. She opened her mouth to explain that that wasn't what she'd meant, then abruptly stopped herself. It wasn't what she'd had in mind ... but it might be a way to locate Cam. At least it was worth a try.

"Ah," she said. "Human, male, about my age?"

A hint of concern flashed across the Twi'lek's face and was smoothed away. "Milady, these very young men, they have not always the control of a more experienced man. Are you --"

Ryn flicked a hand in what she hoped looked like bored dismissal. "My own age, please."

The Twi'lek cringed. "Yes, milady."

Ryn traced the Twi'lek's progress back and forth across the room, making a mental note of each being she spoke to in order to question them later if needed.

_Progress,_ she thought. And then, as one of Ziro's atendants turned and gave her a fierce scowl: _well, maybe._

Ryn waited about fifteen minutes before another of these attendants, a male Twi'lek with deep green skin and avarice in his eyes approached her.

"I believe milady has requested some company?"

Ryn, who had been watching pit repairs with a careful eye, turned and looked him over. "I didn't request _you_."

The Twi'lek bristled and then hid it. "Just so, milady. But for such specific tastes ... a trip to Lord Ziro's palace might be in order."

Ryn raised an eyebrow. "His palace?"

"Lord Ziro maintains a very fine house for those who wish to enjoy his entertainments for a few hours."

_Ah. So _not_ the compound._ It sounded more like a brothel. But if this lackey was willing to bring Cam there, security would almost certainly be looser than at Ziro's compound, which could only help her situation.

"Of course," the Twi'lek was saying, "such visits can be quite expensive."

Ryn nodded. She had been expecting to spend hand over fist on this venture, and Evinne had prepared her accordingly. "Credits or ingots?"

"Ingots are preferred."

"And how many would you consider appropriate?"

The Twi'lek named a sum and Ryn shuddered.

"I could buy a man of my own for that. Why should I give Ziro the same for a few hours of play?"

"Our boys are clean and well-trained," the attendant said, lifting his chin in an all-too-human gesture. "And our rooms are some of the finest on Courscant."

_Oh yes. Definitely a brothel._ "I'll want to see what I'm getting first." Because Evinne would kill her if she spent that kind of money without getting Cam.

"Of course. I will escort you."

It all sounded terribly distasteful. Not to mention downright sleazy. _With a side of evil._ Ryn glanced back at Ziro and thought, _A change is as good as a rest._ "Let's go."

[]

The brothel was a large, ornate structure that Ryn thought might once have been a hotel, lavishly overdecorated and apparently divided into regions according to species. Ziro's assistant put Ryn in a parlor that showed a bit too much of Ziro's influence in the decorating scheme and called for human boys in her age range to be paraded in front of her.

Ryn locked her memory of the holo Evinne had shown her in her mind and waited for Cam to turn up. But boy after boy entered the parlor and was presented, and to each Ryn made some objection. There were a lot of them, and as the time wore on and the attendant tried to conceal his impatience, Ryn's heart sank.

_What if Evinne was wrong and Cam was sold off-world immediately? Or maybe he was assigned to something else entirely ... kriff it, I need more intel._

As yet another sad-eyed youth left the room, Ryn turned and laid her hand on the attendant's arm. "Forgive me, but these boys are all noticeably older than me. Do you not have any lads of twelve or so?"

The attendant looked down at her, trying to hide the irritation in his eyes. "We have a few," he said, restraining himself with an obvious effort. "I must warn you, however, that boys of that age are ... ah ... _unreliable_ in their performance."

Ryn gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. "That will not be a difficulty in this case, I assure you."

The Twi'lek shuddered and went off to make the arrangements.

[]

Ryn took advantage of the momentary privacy to activate her commlink and contact Evinne.

"I haven't much time," she said, when Evinne picked up. "I am in Ziro's Pleasure Palace, and the attendant has gone to find younger boys, but there is no guarantee that I'll find what I'm looking for. I think you should consider other options, just in case."

"Forget that," Evinne said. "You've got bigger problems. The Jedi Council is looking for you. Skywalker's left the Temple without permission, Kenobi knows you're gone ... and I'm pretty sure Ferus Olin is about to do something rash."

"Ferus wouldn't do anything rash if you paid him," Ryn said. "Get Anakin back to the Temple before _he_ does something rash."

"I can't," Evinne said. "I'm too busy keeping everybody else off your ass. And Skywalker's not answering his commlink. Get _back_ here and -- oh, hell. I have to go."

"Evinne?" Ryn said, but there was no answer, and she shut off the commlink and slid it back into her utility belt.

She went through six young boys with her best imitation of ennui, then told the attendant -- who was definitely ready to throttle her -- that she wanted to see something fresher. "These boys are all so _practiced,_" she murmured, flicking a hand at the door in a gesture that she hoped looked elegantly bored instead of slightly panicked. "They've been trained, you can tell. I want something ... _different._"

"We pride ourselves on our well-trained staff," the Twi'lek said, trying without success not to grit his teeth. "However, I believe we have managed to acquire a new boy just last night. He is still in processing, but if milady's needs are urgent, I am sure I could expedite the matter."

"Excellent," Ryn said, clapping her hands with a hint of real relief. "I should be delighted to meet him. Do please arrange it."

[]

_Anakin? Anakin, where are you?_

_ Ryn? I'm in the ventilation system of Ziro's compound. Where are _you_?_

_ Ziro's brothel, apparently. I don't recommend it. Listen, _get out of there. _You're going to get caught. _

_ Get caught? I'm trying to _help_ you!_

No_, damn it! I have things under control, for the moment. _ Ryn's sense in his mind was harried. _Get back to the Temple and do some damage control. I should be there soon._

_ You can't order me around. I'm not --_

_ Anakin,_ please.

She sounded -- well, _felt_ -- so tired, so sad. And worried, about so many things he couldn't pin them all down. _Fine, fine._

_Thank you._

Ryn's presence faded from his mind with a last trace of warmth, more muted than it would have been a day or two ago. Anakin tried not to resent that, since the new distance between them was his fault.

That didn't make it any easier to take.

With a sigh, Anakin turned and began to work his way back toward the exit.

[]

When Cam was finally ushered into the opulent parlor, Ryn breathed a quiet sigh of relief and stood to meet him. "Hello there," she said, holding out her hands in greeting, ignoring his resentful eyes.

Cam hunched his shoulders and glowered at her while the attendant looked on, worried.

"As I said, milady, he's been with us hardly more than twelve hours. He's not yet trained in the --"

"It is all right, Attendant. I assume we may be alone together?"

"Ah ... yes, of course," the Twi'lek said, recovering quickly. "This way, please."


	9. Chapter 9 Conspirators

Disclaimer: George Lucas still owns Star Wars, and I am still not receiving any profit from this work of fanfiction. On the other hand, sometimes people give me feedback, which is a real treat, so ... please?

**CHAPTER NINE: CONSPIRATORS **

Alone with her, Cam looked mutinous. Ryn ignored that.

"Do you know if the rooms are bugged for sound? Or monitored in some way?"

"How should I know? I'm never even been here before. I was in a holding cell in Ziro's compound until an hour ago." He glanced at the wall chrono. "Make that two." His scowl deepened. "I'd _rather_ be there than here. I don't know what kind of sick mind would think kids our age should be in a place like this, but I --"

"Shut up," Ryn said tersely, and to her surprise, Cam did. "have they implanted you with a slave transmitter?"

If possible, the boy's expression turned even more sullen. "I don't know. They knocked me out last night."

"I'll have to search you," Ryn said briskly. "Take off your clothes." She sensed his outrage and forestalled a protest by putting her hands firmly on his shoulders and looking down into his face. "My name is Ryn Orun, and you have nothing to fear from me, all right? I'm a friend, maybe the only friend you've got in a place like this. I want to help you."

"How can you be my friend?" Cam demanded. "I've never even met you."

Ryn dropped her hands and gave him a wry smile. "I'm a friend of a friend. You kind of inherited me."

Cam's eyes widened. _Evinne?_ he mouthed, and Ryn nodded, then made a hurry-up gesture. "Take off the shirt. I need to know if you're wired. I can probably find a mark if they inserted a chip."

Cam stripped off his tunic and turned around so Ryn could examine his back. "What about the Twi'leks who were captured with me?"

Ryn shook her head, running her fingers lightly over Cam's brown skin, seeking any sign of disturbance, any sense of wrongness. "I don't know. I guess I could hire you away and then come back for them."

"No!" Cam leapt away from her careful fingers and spun to face her. "I won't just leave them there! I _can't_." He took a deep breath and stepped closer, whispering. "It will be easier with a man on the inside, right? I want to help. I -- I need to."

Ryn looked down into his worried, earnest brown eyes and bit her lip. _I'm going to regret this._

She pulled her commlink out of her utility belt and activated it.

"What now?" Anakin's voice hissed.

"It's complicated," Ryn answered. "And it might be about to get worse. Can you meet me in a couple of hours?"

"Meet you _where_?" Anakin said.

"You'll know," Ryn said. "Orun out."

She put the deactivated commlink back and looked at Cam. "You sure about this?"

Cam looked more scared than sure, but he nodded fiercely, and Ryn's sense of him was determined.

"Okay," she said. "Back to work."

[]

Anakin followed the tug of Ryn's presence -- no longer muted with shields so heavy she practically vanished -- to the alley behind Dex's Diner. He met her guarded eyes and swallowed uncomfortably. Five minutes ago, he'd been anxious to see her and make sure she was all right. Now the relief of seeing her safe was subsumed in the unpleasant memory of just how badly they'd parted.

Ryn stood silent with her arms folded, waiting for him to make the first move.

_I'm sorry,_ Anakin thought. _I don't know what I was thinking. I'm so sorry._ But what he said was, "I'm glad you're all right."

Ryn's tense shoulders hunched a little, as though his words hurt her. "You, too."

_I'm sorry,_ Anakin thought again, but he still couldn't say it.

Ryn just looked at him, waiting.

"I was worried about you," he said this time.

"I appreciate the concern," Ryn said tonelessly, and Anakin could feel her slipping farther away from him.

_Kriff it. I'm doing this all wrong._

"And it was a ... it was really brave of you go after Cam." _Stupid, but brave._

"Someone needed to."

She stood very still, her arms wrapped tightly around her bare midriff, the lines of her body tight. But in the Force, Anakin could see her trembling, could sense her misery.

"You're cold," he said as a chill blast of wind chased down the alley, lifting Ryn's hair in dark streamers.

"I'm fine."

"Here." Anakin stepped closer and opened his cloak so he could pull her flush against his body and wrap the warm woolen folds around them both.

"I'm fine," Ryn repeated, pushing at him. "I don't need --"

But Anakin held tight. "Yes, you do. You're freezing." _Say it, say it._

He opened his mouth but no sound came out.

_Saying I'm worry is like admitting I was wrong._

_ You _were_ wrong, Idiot! You said you didn't need her friendship, how could that be _right_?_

the morning came rushing back, the awful hollow feeling of watching Ryn walk away, and finally Anakin couldn't take it any more.

"I didn't mean it! I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it."

Inside the cloak, Ryn leaned back to look up at him. "Didn't mean what?"

Anakin couldn't quite meet her eyes. "What I said. About not ... not needing you around. I. Uh. I like having you around." He blinked into the wind, not sure whether the tears in his eyes were caused by its frigidity or the conversation they were having.

Very quietly, Ryn said, "Even if I call you on it when I think you're making an ass of yourself?"

Anakin finally looked down and met her green eyes, rubbing his thumbs in the hollow of her spine. "All the time."

Inside the cloak, Ryn melted against him, and Anakin wrapped his arms around her, feeling the awful tension between his ribs dissolve.

For a moment they were silent, enjoying their renewed intimacy, the healing of the rift between them. Finally Ryn sighed softly and shifted against him. "We still have to do something about Cam," she said reluctantly.

Anakin smiled into her hair. "Just when I was beginning to get warm."

"Me, too," Ryn agreed. "But the sooner we take care of Cam and the others, the sooner we can get back to the Temple and get really warm."

"Don't you ever get tired of being right?"

"It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it."

Anakin pinched the bare skin at her waist and Ryn laughed her sweet, husky laugh, and suddenly Anakin decided he was plenty warm right here.

He cleared his throat. "So. Brief me, Commander Orun."

Ryn told him what she knew, which wasn't much. Cam hadn't been fitted with an Anti-Escape Device, but he'd been separated from the Twi'lek women and didn't know their status or where they were being kept.

"So aside from finding the Twi'leks, which may prove tricky, we need a contingency plan for either getting hold of the transmitter remote, or disabling a lot of AEDs in a hurry," Ryn concluded grimly. "I'm thinking the second option is less risky, if we can get our hands on a reliable method. Would a droid popper do it?"

Anakin shook his head. "Probably not sensitive enough. AEds are pretty small and hard to detect."

"They have to be big enough to do some damage if activated," Ryn pointed out.

"Maybe," Anakin said. "The old kind used to actually detonate. Some of the newer ones just releasee a toxin into the bloodstream. And a few are implanted directly into the brain and send off an electrical charge."

Ryn didn't question his knowledge, just nodded slowly. 'We'd better hope we're not dealing with the last kind," she remarked. "They must be a bitch to remove."

"You just have to deactivate them," Anakin said. "I don't think they would be re-activated by remote, so once you've shut them down, removal is not a priority."

"Okay," Ryn said. "So how do we deactivate them?"

"Without the master remote?" Anakin shook his head. "Before I left Tatooine, I was working on a way to locate the chips. I think if I had the equipment, I could build it now. After that, the easiest thing to do might be to cut them out. They aren't typically buried deep in the body. Well, except the ones in the brain, of course. We'll just have to hope they aren't using those."

Ryn gave him a look that said she was less than satisfied with that plan. "How long?"

"Once I get the parts I need? A few hours. Maybe not more than two."

"Evinne can probably get you the parts," Ryn said. "That just leaves the question of how to deactivate the slave chips once we've found them."

"Well, if we can't actually remove them, we might be able to short them out," Anakin said. "Or ... well, if we knew the transmitter frequency, I could probably rig one of our commlinks to send the deactivation signal."

"Short them out?" Ryn said. "_Probably?_ Maybe it _would_ be easier to get the remote."

"Any thoughts on how we'd do that?"

Ryn shrugged. "Sneak in and steal it?"

"That might be harder than it sounds," Anakin said. "And if Ziro's smart, he has a different remote for each slave, so beings like us can't come in and do ... well, pretty much what we're planning to do."

Ryn rubbed her eyes, and Anakin remembered that she hadn't slept since she was released from the infirmary twenty-four hours earlier. "Okay," she said, "let's comm Evinne and see about getting those supplies."

"And then we'll see about getting you some rest," Anakin said. Ryn looked as though she might protest, so he said reasonably, "Look, I'll need a place to work on this detector thing. It might as well be a place where you can take a nap, too. You'll need the energy later."

"We can't go back to the Temple," Ryn said. "We'd never get back out again." She hesitated, shifting against his arms. "Anakin ... if you don't want to do this, if you feel you should stay out of it, or report back to Obi-Wan ... it's okay, really. I'll understand."

Anakin gave her a squeeze. "There's nothing to understand, because I'm not letting you break into Ziro's compound alone."

"About that," Ryn said. "I was thinking of the front door approach. I think I could still get an invitation at the Outlander Club, if we can just avoid Master Vos."

"Master _Vos?_" _That can't be good._ "Nevermind. You can tell me on the way."

"On the way _where_?" Ryn asked, and Anakin shrugged out of his cloak and wrapped it around Ryn's shoulders.

"Comm Evinne," he instructed her. "And let's get moving. I know a place."


	10. Chapter 10 Incomplete Disclosure

Disclaimer: Wow. So. It turns out that George Lucas owns Star Wars, and I have, like, no claim to the franchise. Did y'all know that already? Wait, you did? Well, okay ... that explains why I'm not making any profit from writing/posting this fanfic, then. :)

**CHAPTER TEN:**

The place Anakin knew turned out to be a hotel in Downtown, not so much five-star as black hole. It was dank, and musty, and the walls showed more patchwork than paneling. The bed was small and narrow and shoved into a corner, although an inspection revealed that the sheets had been recently washed.

Anakin laughed when he saw Ryn sniffing the linens. "I wouldn't have taken you for the fastidious type," he said, and Ryn folded the sheets back into place with a scrunch of her nose.

"I can make do if necessary," she said. "But given a choice, I prefer a clean bed."

"And does this one meet your standards?"

"I couldn't spot any vermin, at least." Ryn sat down the edge of the bed and bounced gingerly. "How do you know this place?"

Anakin looked uncomfortable. "Some of the Padawans use it for ... you know. Privacy."

For a long second Ryn _didn't_ know, and then his meaning dawned on her so suddenly that she almost fell off the bed. "Oh!" she said, startled. "I didn't think you ... I mean, I ... Is there someone particular?"

"What?" Anakin said, his eyes jerking toward her in surprise. "_No!_ I never ... I mean, _Padmé_ ... and I'm only fifteen."

"And a half," Ryn reminded him.

"And a half," Anakin agreed. "But still, I ... I don't like it, what the other Padawans do."

Ryn regarded him doubtfully. "You don't like sex?"

"No!" Anakin exclaimed, frustrated. "That's not what I meant. It's ... it's the _way_ they do it. They ... they don't _care_ about each other. They could be doing it with anyone."

Ryn bounced once again, looking down at her feet while she considered Anakin's words, weighing them against what she knew of Jedi in general and Padawans in particular.

"I think you may be judging them too harshly," she said at last, looking up at him. "If they don't care at all, why should they go to such trouble to come here? Sex alone isn't forbidden, is it? They could do that in the Temple."

Anakin looked down. "I guess so."

"No, you don't," Ryn said, and Anakin looked up. "You think the Jedi are doing it all wrong. I can tell. I just don't understand how you think they should do things instead." She glanced down at her chrono and patted the bed beside her. "Makesh won't be here for another hour at least. Sit down and tell me what you think is missing."

She could feel the misery twist inside him, frighteningly potent. "I don't want to talk about it." His features settled into a familiar sullen resignation. "And you should be sleeping."

Ryn sighed and toed her way out of her boots, recognizing his mood. _Welcome to another long day of brooding._

"All right," she said, crawling between the sheets she'd recently inspected. "Wake me up if you need anything, or if anything interesting happens."

Anakin leaned over and pulled the sheet up around her shoulders. "Sleep tight."

[]

Two hours later, Anakin glanced over at the bed and met Ryn's sleepy green eyes.

"Makesh came?" Ryn gestured at the compact sensor and box of tools, open on the floor.

"Yeah."

Ryn rolled to tuck a folded arm beneath her cheek for a pillow. "I thought I told you to wake me if anything interesting happened."

"It's not interesting until I make it work."

"Can I help?"

Anakin shook his head. "There's no room for another set of hands."

Ryn smiled slightly, still logy from sleep. "Meaning I'm useless."

Anakin quirked a smile of his own over the tiny spanner. "You're focusing on the negative."

He heard the soft breath of laughter as Ryn pressed her face into the covers, and then she swung her legs over the side and sat up, scrubbing her hands through her hair.

"Feel better?" he asked her, and she gave him a rueful grin between her hands, still buried in her hair.

"I _feel_ like I've had just enough sleep to whet my appetite," she admitted. "But it's nothing a good shower won't fix." She stilled suddenly. "This place does have a shower, right?"

"It's sonic," Anakin said, "but yeah. There's a clothes fresher, too, if you need it."

"I'll take it," Ryn said, coming to her feet and stretching. Anakin tried not to watch, as an exercise in control. "The perfume of Hutt tends to linger."

"It does," Anakin agreed.

"Back in a few, then."

[]

Ferus stared down into Evinne's ridiculously good-looking face, refusing to be distracted by her perfect features.

"You let her go alone," he said, his tone hard but still even.

"I didn't _let_ her do anything, for kriff's sake," Evinne said. "Ryn Orun is a highly respected military officer who, by the way, _outranks_ me. She took the mission and I helped her get out of the Temple so she could do it."

"She is a diplomatic attachée to the Jedi Temple, who could now be in mortal danger."

"Ryn has mortal danger for breakfast, all right? She'll be fine. It was her choice and she made it. Don't get your leggings in a wad."

"My --" Ferus bit off the retort. Getting angry wasn't going to help the situation. "You are behaving completely selfishly and irresponsibly. You should have gone with her, or sent someone to go."

"Who?" Evinne waved her hands in a gesture of helplessness. "The whole reason Ryn volunteered was because Ziro had a bounty out on everyone I could have sent. So she did it herself. And it's a little early to get concerned. She hasn't been gone a day yet."

"A _day_?" Ferus experienced his anger and released it into the Force. "We are not going to leave her there. We are going after her, and I am contacting Master Kenobi. Now."

"No!" For the first time, Evinne looked a little panicked. "Look, you can't tell Kenobi. I promised Ryn I'd keep this quiet. If it all goes well, she could be back before tomorrow with no one the wiser. She didn't want to worry the Council. And she definitely didn't want to cause a diplomatic incident. It could disrupt everything she's worked for here if Kenobi brings the Council in."

_Maybe she should have thought of that before she went haring off on a completely unauthorized rescue mission,_ Ferus thought. But as frustrated as he was -- Jedi weren't supposed to _get_ frustrated, but he had to admit to his feelings before he could conquer them -- he couldn't just sell her out to the Council, not unless it was absolutely necessary.

"Fine," he said, his tone level again. "You and I will go after her. We are leaving. _Now._"

Evinne blinked. "Oh. Well. All right."


	11. Chapter 11 Lend a Hand?

Author's Note: Look out, kiddies. This chapter deals with some mature themes. Nothing explicit, but consider yourselves warned.

Disclaimer: I heard a rumor that George Lucas owns Star Wars. And I know I'm not making any profit from this work of fanfic.

CHAPTER ELEVEN - Lend a Hand?

By the time Ryn exited the 'fresher -- in newly unscented clothes and combing her long hair out with her fingers -- Anakin was putting the final touches on the AED locator.

"Will it work?" Ryn asked him, pointing with her foot since her hands were busy.

Anakin rubbed his face with his hands, grimacing when he realized he was smearing grease. "We wont' know for sure until we try it," he admitted. "There's no way around that. But I was thinking ..." He let his voice trail off, still not sure about the idea, and Ryn, busy wrapping her hair into some kind of loop on top of her head, said, "Yeah?"

"That ... thing you did in the factory -- the mind trick thing. Do you think you could project something else? Like maybe a desire for sleep?"

Ryn finished tying up her hair and pulled the room's lone chair out so she could straddle it. "I don't know," she said. "That was my first time doing it on purpose. Why?"

"How many people do you think you could confuse at once?"

Ryn grinned at him. "If I'm talking? Thousands. But the way you mean? I don't know that, either. I guess it would depend on proximity and how clear-headed they were to begin with. What are you thinking?"

Anakin looked at the shadows under her eyes and almost didn't say it. But in the ed, he didn't have any better ideas, so he said, "The easiest way to get the slaves out is if no one realizes what we're doing."

"I'll just cancel the announcement, then," Ryn said drily.

Anakin shook his head. "Look. We'll get in, and I'll find a way to scan the slaves. Then I'll signal you, and if there are AEDs, you can pilfer the remote and we'll sneak out. If there aren't any AEDs, then we can just skip straight to the sneaking."

He could see the worry in her eyes. "I can see a lot of opportunity for failure there."

"But there is also opportunity for success," Anakin pointed out. He rocked to his feet. "Do you have any better ideas?"

Ryn sighed. "Kriff it. No, I don't. But this is going to be a mess."

"It may not be as bad as you think," Anakin said cheerfully. He glanced out the tiny window. "So. We wait until nightfall, then we go over to the Outlander and you wheedle out an invitation to Ziro's compound. We'll take the rest as it comes."

Ryn crossed her arms on the back of the chair. "So. My cover was as a careless young noblewoman in search of entertainment. What will you be?"

"Your brother?"

Ryn shook her head. "No. I gave them my real name. I thought it would be better not to invent any more than I had to. But you are very clearly not my brother. No one would believe it."

"Siblings don't always look alike," Anakin reminded her.

"Kit is recognizable," Ryn countered. "We've fought the Hutts on and off for years, over one thing and another. He'll be known to Ziro's men, by sight at least."

Anakin looked back at her. "And you?"

"Ziro knew who I was. But there's no price on my head." She grimaced. "Yet."

"You will have after this," Anakin told her.

Ryn looked gloomy. "I know."

"Try not to be so glum." He glanced out the window again. "And see if you can go back to sleep. After what you told me about Master Vos, there's no point in going to the Outlander before dark."

Ryn got up and moved obediently to the bed. "What about you? Aren't you going to try and get some sleep?"

"I'm fine."

Ryn frowned at him over the blanket. "You just healed," she reminded him. "Come to bed for an hour or two."

He couldn't think of a reason not to that didn't sound like _But I was just in your bed, thinking about you naked._

"Come on," Ryn urged him, oblivious, holding the sheet for him.

Anakin shed his utility belt and tabard and kicked out of his boots.

A half hour later, Ryn stirred and turned over to face him. "Still can't sleep?" she asked softly, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Anakin, lying rigid on his back, shook his head. "I'll just meditate."

"Is that ... is that what Jed normally do in this situation?"

Anakin scowled at the ceiling. "What situation?"

He could feel Ryn's blush, even though he was refusing to look at her. "I don't know the word in Basic. The way you're feeling. Like yesterday, when we ... kissed."

"That is not going to happen again," Anakin told her, just so they were perfectly clear.

Ryn glanced down his body, jerked her eyes back to his face. "It looks as though it might help."

"It would _not_ help," Anakin said firmly, trying not to think about that kiss. "It would make things worse."

Ryn looked sympathetic. "Maybe not if I ... helped you." She didn't know the word for the kind of help she was offering in Basic, either, it seemed, but she sent him an image of her hand, sliding down his stomach ... and when he shook his head, she apparently thought it was a matter of taste, because she changed the image so that she was _licking_ her way down, and ...

Anakin sat up fast, trying to control his breathing. "No! _Force_ no! _Stop doing that_!"

Ryn shrank back a little, looking hurt and confused. "Why not?" she asked quietly. "Is it ... is it because you want Padmé?"

Anakin looked away. "No."

And it wasn't, not entirely. But Ryn must have sensed the little bit that was, because she said, "Padmé is in the past, Anakin. She may even be in the future. But is is not here _now_." She couldn't quite hide the catch in her voice at the end.

"It isn't that," Anakin said, to save her from having to go on. He tried to find words that wouldn't hurt her. "Or, well, not only that. You're too young."

Ryn sat up beside him, plucking lint from the bedspread with careful fingers. "You're not so much older."

"I know." He couldn't explain, not really. He could tell her, but it wouldn't be the same.

He tried anyway, because he owed her that. "On Tatooine, only slaves ... start doing things like that at your age, sexual things. Sometimes it's because they're forced, sometimes it's choice ... but it's like there's no point in putting it off, no point in waiting for someone special ... because there are no guarantees. Their master could decide, at any time ..."

Ryn didn't need to know the gory details. He cleared his throat and blinked, arousal fading in the face of emory. "Sometimes girls would hurry to find someone for their first time, so at least they got to pick, even just once ... Amee asked me and Kitster, years ago, if we'd make sure her first time was with one of us. We were just _kids_ ... I don't want it to be like that for you. I couldn't live with myself if ..." _If I hurt you. If I treated you like a slave._ "...if we did something and you regretted it, later." He cupped one hand under hers and threaded their fingers together, glimmering white against desert tan. "I want you to have all the time in the galaxy to find someone. To be ready."

Ryn turned their twined hands so that his was on top, lightly tracing a faded scar. "You are my someone special," she said softly. "But I can understand why you would want to wait. There is no hurry." A very slight tightening of her fingers said otherwise. "But you are still uncomfortable. So." She stretched up to kiss him, very tenderly, on the cheek. "I saw a pastry shop one level up. I'm going to go check it out --" she disentangled their fingers and slipped past him, over the edge of the bed "-- and I'll be back in fifteen minutes or so."

At the door, she turned back, the faint vestiges of a shy smile in her eyes. "Thank you, for telling me."

Then she was gone, and Anakin fell back on the bed and thought about that licking thing.


	12. Chapter 12 Taken

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I just enjoy putting his characters through various kinds of trauma. Anyway, I don't get paid for this, more's the pity.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The desk attendant gave Ryn a cautious ogle as she left the building, and Ryn feeling less agreeable than usual, turned at the door and gave him a hard stare to let him know she'd noticed and didn't appreciate the attention. He shrank back behind his desk and Ryn wandered outside, feeling guilty for intimidating him and irked at feeling guilty.

She pulled her hair free of its loop and dragged her fingers through it, striving for a sense of calm, or at least for a single emotion on which to focus her energy.

Instead she felt angry, and worried, and nervous, and turned on, all at once. Turned on by the level of tenderness and caring Anakin showed in wanting her to wait. Angry at a galaxy that had made her best friend wary of life's simple pleasures, and an act that should be only good.

His shields had been leaking pretty badly there at the end, and Ryn had seen things she was sure he hadn't meant for her to see, things he didn't even let himself remember, when he could help it.

_Blood and tears and screaming girls and sometimes boys, begging for a reprieve, bleeding on the floor, voices crying in the night ..._

Ryn pushed her hair back and let the wind dry the tears on her cheeks.

_I grew up in a war zone,_ she thought dully. _I grew up in a war zone, but I never saw that._

She wasn't sure whether to be amazed at Anakin's resilience, or disheartened at the scars he carried. She knew she was a little frightened at his determination, his willingness to do _anything_ in order to create a galaxy in which the things he'd seen could never happen. That kind of determination was dangerous somehow: Ryn could feel it, like a shadow lurking at the edge of her thought. It was the same feeling she got when she heard wolves howl in the distance: lost, lonely, foreboding.

And of course she was still worried that Cam was getting a rough introduction, even now, to the galaxy Anakin had grown up in. She was nervous that she wouldn't be able to save him. That, despite her best efforts, she wouldn't be able to save_ any_ of them.

Too late, she felt the prickling sense of immediate danger and spun, catching the dart in the shoulder. "Ow ..."

[]

Anakin felt the sharp jolt of fear run through Ryn and froze, watching Ryn, trying desperately to see what had startled her.

_Bounty hunters._ He wasn't sure whether the thought was Ryn's or his, but the Mandalorian and Rodian holding blasters on her certainly met the description. Ryn's perceptions were blurred, but he felt the dart with her fingers, flinched from the sharp burn that flared in her shoulder as she plucked it free.

Ryn staggered backward and Anakin grabbed for his pants.

He dashed outside just as the bounty hunters were forcing a weakly struggling Ryn into an airspeeder with an open cockpit. He saw recognition flash briefly across Ryn's pale face and then she turned away, refusing to acknowledge him.

It was a smart move not to draw attention to his approach, but it irked Anakin anyway. Ryn was his friend, and it was high time she took a break from being noble and asked for some help.

_You can tell her that after you get her back._

The airspeeder zoomed into traffic with a scream of overworked inertials, prompting a nearby driver to flash an obscene gesture. Anakin grabbed his swoopbike and kicked it into gear, making an equally abrupt entrance to the skylane.

The Rodian turned in his seat and started snapping off shots. Anakin jinked from side to side, pressing the accelerator as far as it would go. Despite his zig-zagging to dodge blaster fire, he was gaining on them. The Rodian took aim again, and in the back seat Ryn rose jerkily and shoved at him with her stun cuffs. Anakin saw electricity crackle blue around the cuffs and guessed that the third bounty hunter, a humanoid female, held the control. Ryn managed to get in another blow, despite the pain Anakin could feel radiating from her, before she collapsed helplessly into the back seat.

Anakin's jaw tightened with determination. _Hang on, Ryn. I'm coming. _Just a few more meters and he'd be within leaping distance.

A shot from his right blasted through the swoops, controls, disabling its engine. Anakin didn't have time to look and see where the shot had come from. He gathered the Force and jumped.

Coruscant flashed crazily beneath him. Wind whistled in his ears. He reached for the back of the airspeeder, missed -- and felt his fingers close over the scorching tailpipe.

The metal was burning his fingers, but Anakin didn't let go. Pain was temporary and burned fingers healed; a fall through Coruscant might kill him, and losing Ryn he just couldn't contemplate.

Her scream echoed in his mind as he fought to get control of the pain, followed by a sense of loss so profound it threatened to swamp him, too. He felt pain jolt through her again, punishment for howling, and she ignored it and drew breath to scream again. The sound pierced Anakin's ears as surely as her agony speared through his heart. Savage, rending, her keening grief ripped through Coruscant's wind-buffeted atmosphere, saturating the Force like blood.

It took Anakin precious seconds to muster the concentration necessary to punch through her obliterating storm of pain and finally reach her. _Ryn! Ryn, don't worry. We'll get out of this._

Disbelief. _Anakin?_ Quickly followed by resounding joy. _ANAKIN! You're alive!_

_ I'm hanging onto the tailpipe --_ he twisted to the side as a bolt from the mystery shooter zinged by -- _and being shot at. Quiet down and kick the female hard when I give the signal._

Anakin sensed her acquiescence, a wordless response, like most of their exchanges, that his mind interpreted as _okay._

Twisting this way and that, finding one precarious handhold after another on the airspeeder's underside, Anakin worked his way toward the side of the airspeeder and reached for the release to the door the female bounty hunter bothered to use during their getaway.

_Get ready,_ he warmed Ryn and felt her woozy acknowledgement.

He yanked on the door release and nothing happened. Tried again and squinted at the detailing.

Anakin bit back a curse. _Soldered shut. Okay, new plan._

"Distract them!" he yelled at Ryn, and swung himself over the side.

But even as Anakin reached for his lightsaber, the female tossed her stun cuffs control to the Rodian, who pressed a button and made Ryn jerk erratically, spine arching against the seat, eyes wide and frightened. The female fired a shot that Anakin deflected over the side and the Rodian leaned over the back of his seat and pressed the business end of his blaster to Ryn's skull.

"Drop your lightsaber, _Jedi_, or she dies."

Anakin froze.

Ryn looked up without moving and met his eyes, and behind the haze of whatever they'd injected her with, the fear was gone, replaced by a peace that was more than a mere acceptance of her fate, a steadfast unshakeableness no weapon could slay.

She even managed the hint of a rueful smile.

Anakin dropped his lightsaber and sank to his knees on the seat beside her, elbowing the female bounty hunter out of his way.

"Are you all right?" Anakin felt the stun collar snapping shut around his neck, but he didn't take his eyes off Ryn's face.

Ryn indicated the blaster pressing against her head with a barely-there movement of her eyes. "I've been better," she answered, her mouth twisting wryly. More softly -- he could hear a slur in her voice now, probably thanks to the dart -- she added, "Sorry for dragging you into all this."

"No talking," the female bounty hunter growled, but Anakin let his fingers brush Ryn's on the seat. They were alarmingly cold, but he managed to hang onto his smile as they passed through a set of blast doors in a seemingly solid wall. _We'll be all right. I'll take care of you. I promise._


	13. Chapter 13  Captive

Author's note:

1) So this chapter is crazy-short. It didn't seem to fit anywhere else, so you get it separate.

2) Apologies to the Random Reader, who didn't get a review reply last time! But seriously, thanks so much for the r/r. And you're right ... mmmm, Ani and Ryn alone together ... can you taste the yumminess? Whew.

Disclaimer: Oh, yeah. About that. Mr. Lucas, I know Star Wars belongs to you. But it's just ... Ani's so cute ... and then ... I kind of wanted to play, and ... yeah. But I'm not making any money, promise. :)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Captive

Anakin bit back a groan as he hit the floor and rolled. It was too dim to see much of the space he was in, but the smell and a sickening sense of familiarity told him he was in a Hutt's slave quarters.

He must have projected that thought, because beside him Ryn landed with a hiss of pain and whispered, "No. We're in some kind of holding cell. I don't --" Their stun cuffs flared to life.

"No talking!" the humanoid in Mandalorian armor barked, and Ryn subsided, wriggling closer to nudge Anakin with her hip in an gesture of comfort.

As soon as their guards were gone, she put her mouth next to Anakin's ear and whispered, "Can you use the Force to release the cuffs?"

"I don't think so," Anakin whispered back. "I keep trying, but nothing happens."

Ryn made a frustrated noise. "So they must have known we would be Force-sensitive and prepared accordingly. But how could they have known to expect two of us?"

"I don't think they did," Anakin said. "You've got the cuffs and I've got the collar. It's a single set."

Ryn shuddered. "I've heard of those before, but I've never seen them. What do they _want_ with us?"

"Ziro must have realized you weren't what you seemed" Anakin deduced. "But can you hear the noises? We've _got_ to be next to the slave quarters."

Ryn's jaw tightened. "That's reassuring."

Anakin swallowed his fear and met her eyes. "Ryn, I promise, whatever happens, I will _not_ let you become a slave."

"I don't want that promise," Ryn said. "It might be a good way to read the land. Just promise me that if you get a chance to escape, you'll take it. Then you can come back for me, if you have to."

"Only if you promise me the same."

"Done."

Anakin looked around the cell, mostly hidden by the dim lighting. "It would be better if we could find a way to get _all_ of us out."

Ryn's sigh was almost inaudible. "No argument here."


	14. Chapter 14  Upwardly Mobile

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Upwardly Mobile**

Anakin's perceptions seemed to be restricted by the collar around his neck, so Ryn tried to center herself, despite the tranquilizer humming in her blood, and stretch out with her "extra" sense to figure out what was going on. It was hard, because even if she hadn't been struggling to work through brain fog, Anakin's proximity tended to drown out everything else. On a normal day, she found that restful, not having to work to shut out the stray thoughts around her. This sixth empathic sense was more like hearing than sight, she'd learned long ago; you could choose to pay more attention to one thing or another, but you couldn't really look away and you definitely couldn't close you eyes. Right now, Anakin was a very loud, very close symphony that was making it hard to hear the murmurs in the next room.

"Think quieter!" she hissed at him ungrammatically as she leaned against the wall, trying to pick apart the _actual_ noises coming through. "I'm trying to figure out what's going on and you're drowning out everything else."

"I know what's going on," Anakin said grimly. "We'll be held in here until they can find slave transmitters for us, and then we'll be thrown into the slave quarters with the rest of these miserable beings."

Ryn spared him a glare. "Let's hope the Jedi are wrong about your focus determining your reality, then," she said irritably. Fighting the effects of tranq shot seemed to be taking up most of the energy she would normally focus on demonstrating patience. "_We don't know that._ In fact, it seems unlikely that a Hutt living on Coruscant would want to antagonize the Jedi by kidnapping one of their own. He's practically daring the Temple to act."

"Maybe he wants to," Anakin suggested. "Maybe he's specifically targeting Jedi."

Ryn scowled at him. "Don't get hysterical. Who would be stupid enough to do that?"

"Granta Omega, maybe."

"Granta Omega," Ryn repeated. "I know he's supposed to be some kind of master of disguise, but you can't seriously expect me to believe that even he is masquerading as Ziro the Hutt. Do you see any evidence that he is behind this?" When Anakin just glowered at her, she pressed on. "Look, if it were Granta Omega, he'd probably want to do it himself so he could take all the credit, right? He wouldn't hire someone like Ziro." Ryn sighed. "Anyway, he probably wouldn't make me a target. I'm not a Jedi. Just an idiot."

"Don't say that," Anakin said, warm concern melting away some of his panic. "You're one of the smartest people I know."

_You're overselling it, Anakin._ "Smart enough to get myself captured," Ryn said bitterly. "A child would have known better. I _did_ know better. But I let myself get distracted. And here we are."

"It is _not your fault,_" Anakin said. "I should never have let you go out there alone in the first place."

"You didn't _let_ me go anywhere," Ryn countered testily. "I'm an adult. I _decided_ to go out, and I don't remember needing your permission to do it."

She sighed and let her throbbing head drop back against the wall. "I wasn't paying attention, and I got caught. I screwed up." She closed her eyes, because the flickering of the dim lights was making her head hurt. Into Anakin's silence, she said, "Maybe it would be more productive to think about a way to get ourselves out of this mess?"

Anakin snorted and crawled over to sit beside her. "Well, Master Obi-Wan does say that a Jedi must not dwell on his mistakes. He accepts them and moves on."

Ryn gave him a rueful smile in the half-light. "Maybe I can fake the Jedi thing for a while. What we need is a way to either remove or deactivate this gear we're wearing."

"And since the collar is affecting my ability to use the Force, we'll have to use a more hands-on method," Anakin concluded.

Ryn nudged him with a friendly elbow. "So? That's why I brought a mechanical genius along."

"Even a genius needs some tools," Anakin pointed out.

Ryn didn't like to admit that that might be kind of problem. "Maybe there's something around here that you could use?"

Anakin glanced around the bare little cell, empty except for them. "If there is, I'm not seeing it." He reached over to take her wrists, bound together by the stun cuffs, and hold them up to the light, such as it was. "I'm not even sure what I'll need."

Ryn held very still, trying to withdraw all her own perceptions, shrink into her own body, make her presence as small as possible in the Force so that she wouldn't bleed over and cloud whatever focus he managed to achieve while wearing the collar.

After a few tense minutes, Anakin said, "All right. I see how the locking mechanism works. It's an electromagnet of some kind. I think if I had a piece of something nonconductive that was small enough, I could disrupt the charge and the cuffs would unlock. Or if I had something with a charge, I could short out the power cell, but I don't know what that would do to you."

Ryn shuddered. "So, not Plan A."

"No," Anakin agreed.

"Okay. What's nonconductive in here?"

Anakin shrugged. "Anything thing made of a plastoid material. Or, I don't know ... our clothes, probably, but I don't think I could tear a piece small enough that would hold. Maybe --"

Ryn stopped him with a hand on his arm, awkward because her wrists were held forcibly parallel. "Wait a second," she said. "My shirt."

"Your _shirt_?" Anakin looked doubtful. "Ryn, it's small, but it's not --"

"No, no," Ryn said impatiently. "It hooks together in the back. And I'm pretty sure the hooks are plastoid."

"Pretty sure?" Anakin said. "That's not very reassuring." He bent over to check, pushing gently at her shoulders until she lay forward with her face on her knees.

"I can't be sure, either," he admitted finally, after a lot of tugging and pinching and tapping. "I think maybe the hooks are some sort of enameled metal. And it would work better to use something thin but solid, and flat. These hooks are small enough, but kind of rounded."

"You weren't this picky a minute ago," Ryn said grumpily, unfolding as Anakin released her and moved back against the wall. "Too bad they took our utility belts. We could have --" she realized she was arguing in what-ifs and stopped short. "Sorry."

But Anakin wasn't listening, anyway. "Maybe we're going about this all wrong," he said. "We've been assuming that we need to get out of the cuffs and collar before we get out of this room." _Cell_ was the word he wanted to say and didn't; Ryn heard it anyway. "But if we could get out of _here_, first, we might find something to work with."

Ryn felt a little dubious about their chances of getting anywhere useful while still in restraints; but it wasn't as though she was overflowing with bright ideas herself. She studied the room for a minute and said, "Door or vent?"

"Vent," Anakin said decisively. "It's less likely to be set with an alarm trigger, and if we make it into the air ducts we have a chance to move unseen."

The tranquilizer, still swirling through Ryn's veins, urged her to take a nap and try that later. Clenching her jaw, Ryn moved woozily to stand beneath the vent's grate.

She stretched up with both hands, measuring the gap with her eyes. Anakin could probably reach it, but she wasn't sure what kind of a grip he could get without accessing the Force. Feeling him come up behind her, Ryn dropped her arms, spearing the grate with another hard glance. "You want to try, or should I?"

"Can you even reach it?" Anakin asked her.

"Well, no, not from the floor."

"Then I suggest I go first. I'm taller, and stronger in the arms anyway."

That was indisputably true. Ryn swallowed a comment about how attractive that was, pretty sure that was the tranquilizer talking. Not that he didn't look good, but she wouldn't ordinarily bring it up. _Be discreet,_ she reminded herself. _And for Force's sake don't jump him in the cell._


	15. Chapter 15 How to Stage a Coup

Disclaimer: So ... George Lucas still owns Star Wars. I'm just hanging on to Ryn, and Evinne, and this little story ... from which I am making no profit.

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN: How to Stage a Coup **

The grating, luckily for them, was not welded in place. It was affixed with four screws, one of which was cross-threaded and took some time.

"We won't be able to screw it back into place after ourselves," Ryn observed, feeling a perverse need to bring up everything they couldn't do anything about. "They'll know where we've gone."

Anakin shot her a quick glare. "Thank you. Do you have a better idea, or are you just here to criticize?"

Ryn smiled dreamily at him, forgetting for a moment to fight the effects of the tranquilizer. "I'm just here to criticize," she conceded cheerfully. "I'm a killjoy. Everyone says so."

Anakin gave her a wary look as she stepped closer. "Who's _everyone_? What -- Ryn, what are you _doing_?" He gasped the last question, distracted as Ryn's tongue swept into the hollow behind his ear, waking nerve endings and making them beg for more. He shuddered hard with pleasure, and Ryn licked again, working her way down his neck, tasting salt and sweat and Anakin.

She whimpered when he pushed her away, holding her at arm's length. "You are not yourself," he told her.

Ryn thought that might be good news, depending. "Who am I, then?"

Anakin shook his head, his thumbs on her shoulders stroking the outer ends of her collarbone, and Ryn shivered, wanting more. "Ryn," he said, and Ryn blinked at him, momentarily confused. Hadn't he just said she _wasn't_ Ryn? "Listen to me. You were shot by a tranquilizer dart and it is making you do things you wouldn't normally do." _I wouldn't?_ Ryn thought. _What was I thinking?_ "But you have to fight it," Anakin went on, the sheer burning desperation in his voice dragging her back, because she couldn't let him sound like that. "I _need_ you, Ryn, you have to fight it."

Ryn really didn't want to. If there was one thing she was clear on, it was that she wanted more of Anakin and less of their current reality. Except, as far as reality went ... Anakin _really_ needed her to focus, because they were both in real danger.

He looked at her, waiting, his eyes full of warmth and trust and encouragement, and Ryn huffed out a breath and tried hard to focus.

"Right," she managed after a couple of tries. "How are those screws coming, then?"

Anakin dropped his hands from her shoulders and reached for the grating with a relieved smile. "Last one," he assured her. "We'll be out of her in no time."

It was a little unclear whether Ziro's ventilation ducts were going to be a big improvement over Ziro's holding cell, but Ryn decided that saying so fell under the category of Unhelpful Remarks. So she just nodded and stood still, trying not to do anything else loopy while she waited for him to finish.

Ryn didn't have her hands free for climbing, so Anakin pulled himself up first and then reached down to catch Ryn's wrists and haul her up after him. Even without the Force, he made it look easy, and Ryn wanted to point out that this was irresistibly attractive, but she was feeling a sort of muted embarrassment about that whole licking business, so instead she drained as much of the lust out of her voice as she could and said, "Thanks."

She must have sounded a little off, because Anakin frowned at her. "Don't mention it."

_Even if I really want to?_ Ryn thought, but she let it go and did her best to crawl quietly after him down the shaft. With her wrists bound in rigid metal, it wasn't easy.

"Where are we going?" she whispered, the sound echoing faintly.

"Somewhere we won't be found until I can get these things off us," Anakin whispered back. He sounded less patient than usual.

"No, wait a minute," Ryn said anyway, stopping because she needed all her energy to think. "Didn't you say we were next to the slave quarters, before?"

Anakin flinched. "Not out loud, I didn't."

"Sorry," Ryn said, because she knew he hated it when she read his mind, even by accident. "But if you're right, then we might be able to get some help there."

Anakin twisted to look back at her in the confined space. "I thought we were here to help _them_."

"Which we'll be able to do much better once we're out of restraints," Ryn said. "Come on, Anakin. It's our best shot."

She wondered if Anakin realized that he was making a faint but distinct growling noise.

"Okay, fine," he said finally, and beneath the obvious frustration Ryn could feel something bleak and awful, like a black hole forming inside him. Ryn wanted to comfort him somehow, but there was really nothing she could say. Tatooine loomed over them both, a vast and ominous cloud that could have blocked even that planet's two suns. _Like a storm of crows,_ Ryn thought, remember a line of poetry from home. So in the end she just reached forward and squeezed Anakin's ankle, the only thing she could really reach in the ventilation shaft.

"We'll be all right," she whispered, although she had precious little evidence in support of her assertion. "We've got each other."

"Yeah," Anakin said roughly. "Back up."

So Ryn scooted backwards on her hands and knees, easing herself over the hole they'd just come through, and Anakin followed her, until Ryn crossed the next grate -- very, very carefully. Hardly daring to breathe, she whispered, "This is it. We're over the next room now."

Anakin was very still for a few seconds. Ryn could feel him concentrating, trying futilely to reach the Force. Finally, he said, "Any guards?"

"I don't think," Ryn breathed. "They all feel ... the same." _Tired and frightened and hopeless._ She didn't think Anakin needed the description; he already knew.

"Let me," he whispered, and Ryn backed up again so that he could cross the grating and look down through the metal grid.

She heard him tap quietly a few times, and the there was some shuffling down below and a voice said, "There's someone in the vent!"

"That's Cam," Ryn whispered to Anakin, recognizing the voice and the feel of the boy's mind.

"Cam," Anakin said softly, and Ryn felt the boy's surprise, "I'm Anakin Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you."

"You're who?" Cam said, and Ryn smothered a snort.

"My name is Anakin Skywalker," Anakin repeated, sounding more impatient than usual. "I'm here with Ryn Orun, and --"

"Ryn Orun!" Cam exclaimed. "Where is she?"

Ryn tried not to laugh at Anakin's frustration. "I'm here, Cam. Try to do what he says."

She heard Anakin puff out his breath in exasperation. "_Thank_ you. Cam, I need you to find somebody to unscrew this grate so we can get down, all right?"

"Um." Cam's uncertainty was sharp against Ryn's mind. "Okay."

Movement below, a low murmur of voices. Then Anakin said, "I don't think you -- oh."

Ryn bit back an impatient desire to demand to see. There was no rational reason for her to be at the grate instead of Anakin; she just liked being in control. _You've really got to get over that,_ she told herself. But then something shifted and sharpened in her senses, and ...

"Someone's coming," she told Anakin.

"Get down," he hissed to whoever was on the other side of that grate.

There was a thud, and then a click, not quite so close, and Evinne's voice said, "What the _hell_?"

"Evinne!" Cam gasped, and then: "Who are _you_?"

"My name is Ferus Olin," said a newly familiar voice. Ryn felt him coming closer. "Anakin." He sounded rather pained. "What are you doing in the ventilation system?"

Anakin drew breath for an angry retort, and Ryn reached out to grab his ankle. "Anakin," she whispered, not sure whether it was a warning or a plea.

He wrenched his neck to glance over his shoulder at her, face set and stormy and Ryn gave him a tiny shrug. _Behave,_ she mouthed.

For a split second she thought Anakin was going to argue the point. But then something softened in his eyes, and he turned back to the grate. "We got captured before we could mount a rescue," he told Ferus, which wasn't quite true, because only Ryn had really gotten captured. Anakin had surrendered, rather than let her be killed.

"Ryn's with you?" Ferus asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay. Back up. I'm going to cut you out."

"There are screws --" Anakin began.

"I think we might be on a schedule."

Ryn closed her eyes. "Do I want to know?"

"If we do this right, you'll never need to," Ferus promised her.

That wasn't terribly reassuring.

Anakin backed away from the opening and a lightsaber speared through the grate, making short work of the rusting metal.

Anakin started toward the opening, then stopped and pulled off his poncho, awkward in the confines of the narrow shaft, and passed it to Ryn. "Here. Put this under you when you scoot over the edge, so you don't burn."

Ryn glanced at the heated edges of metal. "What about you?"

"I'll be fine." He crawled forward without waiting for her protest. "I'm not the one wandering the bowels of Coruscant half-naked."

Ryn snorted, but she didn't argue. Instead she eased forward and watched as Anakin descended, bracing his hands on the walls and lowering himself by tension, so carefully that he barely brushed the hot edges of the hole. Ryn wasn't sure she had the upper body strength to pull off that move, even if she'd had her hands free. So she concentrated on arranging his poncho to minimize her skin's contact with the edges of what used to be the grate. By the time she slid into Anakin's waiting arms, she had a couple of burns that would need to be smeared with bacta later, but she'd managed to hold in her automatic shrieks and the pain was doing an amazingly good job of burning through the fog left by the tranquilizer.

She grunted as he set her on her feet, and for just a second the galaxy faded away as Anakin held onto her waist and stared into her eyes. "Are you all right?"

_Take me now._ "Yeah," Ryn answered breathlessly. "I'm fine."

Someone cleared a throat, dragging them back to reality, and Anakin dropped his hands and stepped back with a quick, furtive glance at Ferus.

"You have a pretty interesting definition of _rescue,_" Cam observed, surveying her with his arms folded. "And who's this guy?" He pointed his chin at Anakin.

"Anakin is ... a friend," Ryn said. "He agreed to help me, but then I got myself captured and he ... came along."

"Besides," Evinne said to Cam, "you're in no position to complain."

Ryn nodded, instantly felt dizzy, and swayed, clutching at Anakin's arm for support.

Ferus shot her a curious look. "Is she drunk?" he asked Anakin.

"No," Anakin said, "but they hit her with a tranq dart."

"It's wearing off," Ryn said, but they didn't look convinced.

"Look, we have a problem," Cam said to Evinne. "They took Nesaala and Hirtai away. We have to get to them somehow."

This pronouncement was met with grave silence, except by Ferus. "Who are Nesaala and Hirtai?"

"Two of the Twi'lek women who were captured with Cam," Evinne said, glancing at Ferus, who re-ignite his lightsaber with a repressed sigh and sliced through Ryn's manacles. He hesitated, eying Anakin's collar, and was met with a fierce scowl.

"Don't even think about it," Anakin warned him, and Evinne snorted as Ferus snapped of his lightsaber and stepped stiffly back.

"You mentioned that you were separated," Ryn said, ignoring them to focus on Cam. "Any idea where they were taken?"

"Same place I met you, probably," Cam answered. "The same guy came for them, anyway. But I'm guessing you don't have somebody on the inside any more?"

Ryn shook her head, looking at Evinne, who made a face. "Good guess," the older girl said unhappily.

"Then we have to get over there _right now,_" Cam said urgently. "Before ... anything happens to them."

"It wouldn't be anything that hasn't happened to them before," Evinne said, sounding grim.

"That doesn't mean we should let it happen again," Cam insisted.

"Wait a minute," Anakin said. "We can't just leave all these people." His gesture encompassed the entire slave quarters.

"Are you kidding?" Evinne asked him, looking harried. "Ziro must have close to a hundred slaves. If he's holding even a quarter of them here, that's --"

"We're not here to stage a coup," Ferus put in. He was trying to sound calm, but Ryn could feel his tension.

She glanced around the dismal group gathered in the slave quarters -- maybe fifteen miserable souls in all. "Well," she said quietly, "maybe we should be."

"We're not equipped," Evinne began, but Cam interrupted her.

"The new guy is right," he said, indicating Anakin with a twitch of his thumb. "Besides, these people can help us. They know the way around."

Evinne stared at him for a long moment, then finally threw up her hands. "Oh, hell, then. Ferus, see if the Force won't open that stanging collar. And we're going to need to deactivate these AEDs somehow. I wonder --"

A young Twi'lek female, maybe about Evinne's own age, took a couple of timid steps forward. "Excuse me, Madam. I just - if we had a control wand, we could use it to deactivate all the AEDs, couldn't we?"

"Yes," Evinne said, giving her a sharp look.

"Well I, I mean, they keep all that stuff in the treatment center, in case there's damage, or if they need to do a health inspection. They're all set to the same frequency, and --"

"Enough," Evinne said. "You could find this treatment area?"

"Oh, yes, Madam."

"What's your name?"

"Marath, Madam."

"Stop calling me that," Evinne said. "Ryn. You and Ferus take Marath and go get that control wand. Then come and find us in the transport bay, where we will be looking for something ... spacious."

"Everything flyable will have a restraint code to prevent theft," Anakin pointed out, looking over Ferus's shoulder as the collar snapped open and clattered to the floor.

"Not after you deactivate it," Evinn said. She tossed Ryn a spare blaster. "Let's move, people."


	16. Chapter 16 Improvisation

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars, no doubt about it. Probably this explains why I continue not to make a profit from my fanfic obsession.

A/N: There's a snippet of AOTC dialogue in here. See if you can spot it. :)

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Improvisation**

Crouching behind a medical cabinet a quarter of an hour later, Ferus considered his present situation and reflected that the exciting life might not be for him.

In fact, he could really do without it.

He spared a glance for Ryn, who was setting stolen alpha charges with a brisk efficiency that Ferus found a little disconcerting.

He cast an eye at the door, which so far was holding. "Have you done this, you know, a lot?"

Ryn didn't look at him, busy pulling wires and adjusting clips and Force knew what else. "Deactivate slave chips?"

"No, the thing with the charges."

"Well, not a _lot._ But I'm a very quick study."

Ferus wasn't sure he liked the sound of hat. "By _not a lot_, you mean ..."

She did look up then, meeting his eyes with a quick, crooked smile, and Ferus felt his heart stop while he tried to remember how to breathe. "Don't worry, Ferus. I know what I'm doing."

Ferus's heart started beating again with a painful thud. "I know. I'm sorry. It's just ... this wasn't the plan."

"I know," Ryn admitted. "But this is better."

When they'd entered the infirmary five minutes earlier, they had found both the control wand and a central unit for which the wand was a remote. And Ryn quickly surmised that if they sent the "deactivate all" signal from the central unit and then destroyed it - using the alpha charges she'd taken off an unknown flunky on their way down - they would have a fast and permanent solution to the AED problem.

"You'll need the codes," Ferus had said.

"That won't be a problem," Ryn had answered. She'd been standing just inside the doorway, holding onto a quivering medic with one hand, and at that point she'd pressed her borrowed blaster under the angle of his jaw. "Whatever Ziro's paying, you can't use it if you're dead."

"Good point," the medic had said, and gave her the codes.

So, yes, Ryn's innovation probably _was_ an improvement. But a part of Ferus just wanted to stick to the plan. He didn't think he could explain that to Ryn, so he tried to cover his discomfort by glancing over at Marath, who was currently holding Ryn's blaster on the medic, in case he decided to be a hero after all.

Ryn knew anyway. She set the last charge with a flick of skillful fingers. "It'll work, Ferus. Anyway, it's just a tweak. We're still on target for the Big Picture."

Shouts in the corridor outside. "We're going to have a fight on our hands."

"Sounds like it," Ryn agreed. She checked the charges once more. "Fifteen seconds. Let's go." She reclaimed her blaster with one hand and grabbed the medic with the other as Ferus hit the door release, and the four of them charged out into the corridor, Ryn snapping off surprisingly accurate shots while Ferus deflected fire.

They sprinted right through the enclosure of guards and bounty hunters and let Marath take the lead while Ferus took rearguard. There was a muffled boom from inside the infirmary, and Ryn released the medic, because they didn't need him any more.

A threesome now, they pounded down corridor after corridor, plunged four stories down an inactive lift shaft (with Ferus holding a panicked Marath) and ran on.

Pausing in an alcove to let Marath catch her breath, Ryn wiped the sweat from her forehead with a dirty hand. "Wish I had my lightsaber."

"There's no time to look for it," Ferus said regretfully, and Ryn grimaced.

"I know," she said. "I just ... I made that lightsaber when I was a kid."

_You're a kid now,_ Ferus thought. It was hard to believe that Ryn was legal on her home planet. _I should be respecting her native culture, not criticizing it for being _

_different,_ he reminded himself. He said, "I'm sure you'll make a new one."

Ryn didn't look comforted, but she gave him a cursory nod of acknowledgement. "Marath, you ready?"

And they were off again, racing down overdecorated corridors with their steps periodically dogged by storms of blaster fire. Twice they ran into traps, despite their best efforts, and they were continually having to turn out of their way in order to avoid others.

Later, Ryn would insist that at least one of the encounters was a blessing in disguise, because they ran into the bounty hunting team that had taken her lightsaber and Anakin's, and the female and the Rodian were proudly wearing their trophies.

Ferus would have preferred a non-deadly solution - not that one seemed ready to hand - but Ryn settled the dispute with two quick shots and let Ferus keep the Mandalorian occupied while she recovered the weapons.

After that their going was smoother, despite the fact that Marath's sense of direction was growing increasingly unreliable. Ryn's lightsaber skills proved more than sufficient to the task, and once she announced that she could feel Anakin holding a steady position, they were at least able to supplement Marath's memory with corroborating evidence as they barreled around the twists and turns.

They finally tumbled out into the transport bay, to find Evinne standing on the landing ramp of a lightweight luxury yacht - meant, Ferus noted, for space travel, not the airlanes of Coruscant.

"Hurry up!" Evinne barked when she saw them. "Skywalker already has the locks disabled and the engine hot. Let's go!"

Marath looked to be on the point of collapse; so Ferus grabbed her by one arm and hauled her up the ramp at a run while Ryn followed, deflecting heavy blaster fire and something that looked like grenades.

A bolt zinged through the hatch and ricocheted until Ferus cold deflect it into an enormous bed, surrounded by cushions. Up front, Evinne was swinging into the copilot's chair, as behind them Ryn sealed the hatch.

"Skywalker," Evinne was saying. "I'm sending you coordinates now. Are you seeing them?"

"Yes," Anakin said. He looked tense, but Ferus thought that might be because there were so many beings shooting at them.

"Good," Evinne said. She half-turned in her seat to include the others. "I'm having a thought, here."

Ferus caught the edge of Ryn's weary smile. "Should I be worried?"

"Oh, definitely," Evinne said. "It occurs to me that instead of rescuing slaves today, we'd be more efficient to put Ziro out of the slavery business altogether."

"Yeah," said Cam, "but how?"

"Public relations," Evinne said decisively. "If we take this mess to the Council, the Council will tell the Senate, and the Senate will do nothing. What we have to do is make headlines. Excite public opinion so the Senate can't afford to look the other way."

"And you know how we're going to do that," Anakin said, pushing the ship higher to avoid the traffic congestion.

"Well," Evinne said, "I have an idea. But you're not going to like it."

"Where have I heard that before?" Anakin asked her.

Ryn grinned.

Ferus looked at the three of them and sat down on the nearest bench. "I want to go home and rethink my life," he said to no one in particular.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Very short chapter, detailing Evinne's brilliant plan.

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns all things Star Wars. But Ryn and the gang from Loreth are mine! It's not unlimited power, but it'll do in a pinch. :)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Just Come Back in One Piece

"Quin, of _course_ I didn't send Ryn here alone. As a matter of fact, I didn't send Ryn here at all."

"You're telling me she came down here for a joyride" Quinlan Vos said, a skeptical frown crossing his tanned face.

"I don't think so," Obi-Wan said. He pulled his hood a little lower. "A young boy named Cam was captured by bounty hunters in Ziro's employ last night. Anakin believes Ryn left the Temple this morning in order to stage a rescue."

Vos frowned again. "And where is Anakin?"

Obi-Wan controlled his urge to sigh with an effort and said, "It appears that Anakin has taken matters into his own hands and gone after Ryn himself."

"So now you're looking for both of them," Quin concluded. He seemed unreasonably amused by the situation.

"Yes," Obi-Wan admitted, wondering exactly how much teasing his old friend was likely to think appropriate. "I thought, given your position, you might know something."

"No," Vos said, shaking his head. "That's not a side of the business I have much to do with. Nasty, though. The Senate ought to take action, but too many of the Senators are Ziro's clients."

Obi-Wan shuddered. He was slowly coming to the conclusion that the corruption in the Senate these days was more than the usual petty squabbling of beings who had more power than sense. He was beginning to fear that the rot that had set in was the work of the dark side, that its taint had grown so strong that it had begun to take over beings who weren't even Force-sensitive, who had no way of recognizing what was working on them. At the moment, however, he had more immediate concerns. "I understand," he said to Vos. "Please do contact me if -" His comlink beeped.

"Excuse me," he said to Quinlan, thumbing the comlink's activation switch. "Kenobi here."

"Master!" Anakin's voice said, charged with energy, and Obi-Wan closed his eyes in relief, because whatever else might have gone wrong today, at least his apprentice was all right. "I've found Ryn, like you asked." _Probably not exactly like I asked,_ Obi-Wan thought, but he didn't interrupt to say so. "But we're here with Evinne, and ... well, I'll let her tell you."

"I notice you told the good news yourself," Evinne's voice said drily.

"I wanted to give you a good set-up," Anakin said, too innocent, and Evinne snorted.

"Right. So. Master Kenobi, we just freed the slaves from Ziro's compound. All w could find, anyway. We were a little ... rushed. But I think we have an opportunity here to put Ziro out of the slavery business for good."

Obi-Wan exchanged looks with Quin. "Go on," he said cautiously.

"Instead of springing the slaves from the brothel, too, we're going to send Anakin and Ryn through the back door in disguise and let them collect evidence for a few days and then leak it to the press, forcing the Senate's hand."

_What?_ "You are not sending Anakin to work in a _brothel_!"

"It's a good plan," Evinne said. "We won't get another chance like this."

"What exactly would you three call a _bad_ plan?" said a familiar voice, and Obi-Wan did a double take.

_Wait a minute ..._ "Is that _Ferus_?"

There was a telling pause on the other end, and then Ryn's voice said, "Long story. Look, Obi-Wan, Evinne is right. We've got a chance to do some real good here. How can we turn our backs on that?"

She sounded so intent. Heartbreakingly young and earnest. Much like his wayward Padawan, really.

In the shadow of the Outlander Club, Vos folded his arms and grunted. "It _is_ a good opportunity," he pointed out. "Maybe the best we'll ever get. And they wouldn't have to work the front side of the brothel - there's a live cleaning crew. They're the right team for the job. Anakin knows how to play a slave, Ryn will be there to back him up, and I'm in a position to keep an eye on both of them."

_Kriff._ "Anakin?"

"Yes, Master?"

Obi-Wan wasn't fooled by the meek tone. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes, Master! I _want_ to do it. It's why I chose to become a Jedi, to help people."

_Oh, Anakin ..._ "Ryn?"

"I'll watch his back," Ryn promised.

"I know," Obi-Wan said, because if there was one thing on which he knew he could trust the young Lorethan absolutely, it was that she would protect Anakin to her last breath. "But I have another assignment for you."

"Yes?" She sounded cautious.

"Come back from this mission in _one_ piece, all right? No holes, no broken bones, no electrical burns, definitely no torture injuries."

He could practically hear Ryn's fierce grin over the comlink. "Yes, sir."

"And Anakin? Be _careful._"

"Yes, Master."

Obi-Wan signed off and met his friend's eyes. "Quin ..."

"I know, Obs. I'll take good care of them for you."

[]


	18. Chapter 18 SLAVES

A/N: The dialogue for this chapter contains references to both ROTJ and TPM. See if you can spot it!

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars, and so far he hasn't shown any signs of turning over the rights. That probably explains why I'm not making any money on this fanfic.

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: SLAVES **

In the hold of Ziro's personal cruiser, reeking of Hutt and incense, Anakin dirtied his hands and smeared engine grease over Ryn's face and hands, smudging her sparkling-pale skin. She'd traded clothes with a young woman they'd rescued and was wearing a baggy drab-colored tunic over a pair of dark leggings, so at least she was no longer treating everyone available to the finer points of her anatomy, but still ...

His fingers shook as he applied a smudged black thumbprint to the bridge of Ryn's nose, and somehow her eyes frowned, even though her face stayed smooth. "What is it?

Anakin almost didn't answer. But she deserved to know. His fingertips trailed across the edge of her cheekbone and slipped down the trace the sharp outline of her jaw. Very quietly, as though his voice might shatter her delicacy, he murmured, "You're so beautiful."

If he had been standing just a little farther away, he would have missed the quizzical ghost of a smile that illumined her equally hushed response. "You're taking it kind of hard, aren't you?"

"Don't laugh." The words stabbed Anakin in the throat. "It's _dangerous_ for a slave to be so beautiful."

Something flitted through Ryn's eyes. It wasn't fear - it was something almost like sorrow, but it was gone before Anakin could handle it. "Any advice?"

Anakin brushed his thumb once in the hollow of her cheek as he dropped his hand. "Keep your head down, slump a little. Don't get noticed."

He could feel her concern as he turned away, but he couldn't make himself meet her eyes. Distracted, he found himself staring into Ferus's instead.

The pity there shocked him, igniting the same slow-burning anger that had simmered every time someone had looked at him and said, "Slave."

The moment was broken when someone smacked Ferus in the back of the head with a datapad.

"Ow?" said Ferus, turning, and Anakin's gaze tracked left to see Ryn giving Ferus a hard stare.

"You have all the tact of a bantha in a glassware shop," she told him succinctly.

"I didn't say anything!"

"Thank the Force for small mercies." Ryn gave him a headshake that suggested he might be hopeless. "While you're working on your people skills, see if you can find a medical droid and check the new recruits, so to speak, over. Force knows, they'll probably all need vitamin shots and all manner of anti-parasitic treatments. That place didn't look what I'd call clean."

Ferus took the opening she'd given him and wandered off, focused on his task. Anakin was left staring at Ryn, trying to decide whether he was angry, appreciative, or amused. Maybe all three.

She took a good look as his face and tucked in the corners of her mouth, an odd little gesture of thoughtful dissatisfaction, touched with sympathy.

"Go easy on Ferus," she said in a low voice. "I think he just got his first glimpse of just how much ugliness the Council turns its back on, practically under the nose of the Jedi Temple. That's enough to make anybody tense."

Anger still surged inside, warring with his affection for Ryn. "He was staring at me like - like -"

"Like he's always heard you were born a slave and never had the faintest idea what that meant." Ryn made that same corners-in face, with less sympathy in her eyes this time. "Growing up in the Jedi Temple is a very sheltered life in some ways."

Anakin felt compelled to defend the Order he was now a part of, the Order Qui-Gon had represented. "There's nothing wrong with a safe childhood."

"But the Creche is a terrible preparation for real life." Ryn glanced up as Ferus crossed the hallway some distance away, clearly engaged in his search for a med droid. "It doesn't teach you to learn." She smiled and waved at Ferus, who half-lifted a hand in a gesture that was more like a salute than Ryn's loose, easy wave, and smiled too carefully, as though he weren't quite sure of getting it right. "I guess you have to figure that out for yourself."

Anakin wasn't sure what that meant, or what was going on between Ryn and Ferus, but his own behavior that morning was still too fresh in his mind for him to make a fuss about it. It wasn't like he could take the high ground.

_It's this mission,_ he decided. _It's making me nervous. But I shouldn't let it get to me. This isn't my life anymore. And Ryn has a right to make friends. Even with the terminally bland, if she wants to._

Anakin repressed a sigh. Ryn was fundamentally untroubled by Ferus's relentless insistence on rules and protocols as she was by Anakin's tendency to reject them. As she was of Obi-Wan's slightly fussy demeanor, or Yoda's odd, somewhat inaccessible brand of humor, or Aayla Secura's revealing, decidedly unJedi clothing choices. She practiced a direct, unquestioning acceptace of other beings exactly as they were that reminded Anakin of the little he'd known of Qui-Gon. It didn't remind him of most of the other Jedi he knew, and that bothered him more than he wanted to admit, because even if the Jedi weren't always perfect, they were the best the galaxy had. In many ways, they were _all_ the galaxy had. They were certainly all Anakin had, now. If the Jedi couldn't be trusted to make things right, who could?

"Anakin?" Ryn's eyes were worried. "You okay? You kind of ... went away from me, there."

For some reason, Anakin found himself thinking about the first time he'd realized Ryn was a _friend_, more than just someone Obi-Wan had been forcing him to spend time with because he was interested in the intricacies of Lorethan adolescence. _That was a little creepy, Master._ It has been the day she'd gone to Ziro's compound - the _first_ day, months ago, and in the middle of the afternoon Anakin had been struck by a sickening sense that something was _wrong,_ that Ryn as in trouble. He'd gone out on the Temple steps to wait because he couldn't help it, and as he stood there in the sunlight, trying to experience his dread and release it into the Force, that was when he _knew_. He was worried about Ryn. Not _concerned_ for her in an impartial, Jedi kind of way, but _personally_ worried for Ryn as a unique and irreplaceable being, whose absence he would feel as a direct, personal loss.

He'd never been more relieved than when she'd come dragging up the steps, limping along.

Since then, they'd laughed together and argued together and trained and cook and plotted together. She'd helped him with his Galactic History homework and he'd taught her droid repair skills. She'd taught him to dance and he'd taught her, inexplicably, how to hotwire an airspeeder.

He'd helped her her catch up in Chemistry, and she'd nearly died for him. Twice.

Not to mention what Ryn called the Accidental Nerf Porn Incident. Anakin _still_ couldn't look Jocasta Nu in the eye.

Somewhere along the way - between the philosophical debates and the teasing of Obi-wan and the occasional firefight and one astonishing cache of animal husbandry holovids - Ryn had become someone Anakin could trust, absolutely. Someone who would love him even when he was being a complete idiot - he was, sometimes, he knew it - and always have his back and never tell anyone where the missing hydrospanner had gone.

Even if she was friends with Ferus, too.

He blinked back to the present and found Ryn still staring at him concern. "Anakin?"

"I'm fine. It's nothing."

Ryn looked at him doubtfully.

Sensing her worry, Anakin let a sly grin steal across his face. "I was just wondering. When we get back ... don't you think it's time we explored the mating habits of monkey lizards?"

For about half a second, Ryn looked startled and confused. "I'm sure Master Kirrek has done the research," he prompted her, and then comprehension dawned in her eyes and she began to laugh.

[]

They met Quinlan Vos at the rear entrance to Ziro's Pleasure Palace, and he finagled them in and handed them over to an aging Besalisk with the commentary that they were destined for KP duty.

"Scrubbing 'freshers? These two? We have droids for that, don't we? Anyhow, under the dirt they don't look half bad. Especially the boy - we've been needing another young one like him. Take your shirt off, son, and show us what you've got."

Anakin stiffened. Out of the corner of her eye, Ryn could see his cheeks blazing.

Ryn was pretty tense herself. She wished she could help Anakin out somehow - reassure him that it was all right to comply, or urge him to resist - but the truth was, she had no idea how either of them should react.

It was Master Vos who took charge of the moment. "Well, go on," he told Anakin. "You can't do any good here if you can't follow orders."

It sounded straightforward if you didn't know their mission, but Ryn heard both meanings, and she knew Anakin did, too.

She leaned her psyche into him, just a little, letting him know she was here and she had his back. There was a tiny silence that was more in her empathic sense than in the physical room where they stood, and then she felt a faint answering nudge.

Anakin gripped his tunic in both hands and pulled it over his head. He stood half-naked with the material still bunched around his wrists, jaw clenched in sullen endurance.

He didn't resist as the Besalisk took him by the arm, not gently, and led him over to the only available natural light, pouring in through the open doorway, but Ryn could feel the storm of rage and shame he held locked inside, mixed incongruously with determination.

The Besalisk prodded him in his flat stomach. Anakin's jaw tightened furhter, but he didn't make a sound as the Besalisk whooped in approval. "Hard as durasteel," he applauded, pulling the shit from Anakin's wrists. "Here, boy, turn around and give us a look."

Anakin turned a slow circle with his eyes set on the middle distance and his jaw locked tight. Quinlan Vos whistled and hooted his approval.

Ryn shot the Jedi Knight a look: _cut it out, Vos._ But she couldn't really disagree with his assessment. Anakin hadn't yet finished filling out into the muscular physique that would someday become almost as famous as the scar he'd earn beside his right eye. But he was lean and hard, and for a boy not yet sixteen, he looked damn good.

Good enough to make Ryn's pulse thrum in her veins. She looked away, quickly, feeling guilty for enjoying the view when Anakin was so clearly angry and ashamed. It couldn't be right to enjoy something that hurt him so much.

Vos seemed not to share her feelings, or maybe he was just better at hiding them. He clapped when Anakin completed his circle. Ryn felt sick, but she couldn't tell for sure whether that was her own reaction or Anakin's. Maybe it was both.

The Besalisk turned to her. "Well, what do you think? Give us a female's perspective, eh?"

Ryn gulped; her eyes met Anakin's in a shared instant of panic. Anakin recovered quickly, resuming his examination of the middle distance as though the moment had never taken place.

Ryn racked her brains for something derogatory to say that wouldn't be an obvious ie. She was pretty sure Anakin would rather be on KP duty than out front, servicing Coruscant's glitterati. Wouldn't he?

She couldn't debate the point forever. "I don't know," she said, trying to sound indifferent. "He's awfully tan, isn't he? I'm not sure I like him so tan." She _loved _his tan. She _dreamed_ about his tan. All right, she dreamed about licking his golden skin, but it was the same principle and as an objection it sounded better than _I'm afraid he won't do, he's much too fit._

The Besalisk gave her a dubious look, reassessing Anakin. Quinlan scowled at her, clearly not impressed with her performance. "Are you sure?" the Besalisk asked her. "I thought tans were in vogue among you humans."

"Of course not." Ryn did her best to sound appalled. "Tans are entirely _outré_." Besides, he's terribly thin." _Well, not really._ "You can see the outline of his muscles and everything." _Force, yes._ "A woman likes a little padding." Ryn rather thought that women liked pretty much exactly what Anakin had, although if her earlier experience were any indication, most of the brothel's female clients would be looking for someone older.

The Besalisk stared at her in surprise for a second before saying something to Anakin in Huttese. Anakin's sullen expression never wavered, but Ryn caught a flicker of amusement from him, and then he translated the Besalisks' words for her in his head: _Poodoo, Boy, what'd you do to her, kiss and tell?_ So the Besalisk obviously thought she was contriving insults. Ryn wasn't in a position to complain, as it was true.

"Well, we'll, see," he said, taking his scrutiny off Anakin, who immediately reclaimed his shirt. "KP tonight, and then maybe tomorrow we'll have a look at the tackle, see what you're made of." Ryn felt herself go white as she realized what that meant; even Quinlan Vos, beside her, had tensed. But Anakin didn't flinch. It was as though he had withdrawn so far inside his walls that nothing could touch him any more. As though he had removed, inside, to someplace distant and was no longer even fully _there_ at all. It frightened Ryn, a little.

"And you, feisty little one," the Besalisk added, leering down at her. "You're a grubby little thing, no doubt about it, but underneath all that grease, you've got a nice shape. Skinny, of course, but some males like that. It takes all kinds, that's what I say. Take off that tunic and let's see if you've got the goods."

Ryn tried to think of something in her life that she'd wanted to do less, but she was having a hard time coming up with a list. She swallowed a desire to protest: if Anakin could suffer the indignity after actually _living_ the reality for years, she could surely stomach it for a little while for the good of the mission. Carefully she lifted the hem of her baggy tunic and lifted it over her head. She held it wadded in one hand, scarcely daring to breathe, suddenly glad that she hadn't yet gained back her muscletone or the few kilos she'd lost during two very intense Force healings. She was strong for her size and wiry still, but there was a hollow look about her ribs that hadn't been there a month ago and didn't exactly scream _good health_ now.

The Besalisk tsked critically. "Well, if the boy's too thin, what's there to say about you, hm?" He glanced at Quinlan and Anakin. "What do you think, lads?" He winked broadly at the younger of the two. "Here's your chance to get back at her."

Quinlan eyed her with appraisal. Ryn's instinct was to put her shoulders back and meet his gaze defiantly; but she fought down her pride and hunched her shoulders instead, trying to look cowed and submissive as Anakin had instructed.

"You're right, she is very thin," Vos agreed judiciously. "She needs fattening up. Nice hair, though."

"Yes, yes," the Besalisk agreed. He glanced at Anakin. "Nothing to say, Boy?" Anakin shrugged. "All right, then." He stuck his head out the door and bellowed something in Huttese; a muscular but weary-looking Rodian came running up. "This is Borsk. He'll show you what's what belowstairs. Best you both work down here for a few days, anyway."

And just like that, they were dismissed.


	19. Chapter 19 Keeping the Dark Away

A/N: Things are about to get very personal, y'all.

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making a profit from this work of fanfiction. But I do love to hear feedback on Ryn and Ani ...

CHAPTER NINETEEN: Keep the Dark Away

All the "belowstairs" slaves were bunked together in a long, open room: no privacy. That bothered Anakin more than it did Ryn; at her home in the mountains, it had been the usual thing for young warriors to make beds by the fire in the hall; and though, as the daughter and then the sister of the lord she'd had her own bedroom, at least when she was home, the idea itself didn't trouble her. She'd slept cheek-and-jowl with others plenty of times on campaign.

It was hard to tell whether any of the slaves were irked by the lack of privacy, but Ryn was certain they were all upset by the general lack of comfort. It was every being for himself, scrabbling for whatever blanket thy could beg, borrow or steal. There weren't anything like enough to go around, but Ryn soon learned that there were ways to circumvent the problem.

The only way to get a blanket of one's own was to grab one - usually from someone else - and be strong enough to hold it against all comers. Ryn could tell Anakin was ready to try it; he had that determined look, but Ryn grabbed his arm as he started forward, into the fray. "Don't!" she hissed.

Anakin glared at her distractedly. "I have to!" he hissed back. "We can't be seen to be weak. The time to establish ourselves is now."

_Anakin Skywalker, Survivor of Tatooine._ "We're supposed to be inconspicuous," she reminded him, keeping her voice down with an effort. "Taking a blanket by main force is definitely conspicuous. Besides, we'll be fine without it."

Anakin subsided. She could feel the effort it cost him to set aside the training of his childhood, the instincts that had kept him alive. Standing this close, actually touching him, Ryn could feel those instincts screaming at him: _Fight now, stand your ground, never let them think you're weak ..._ Despite the logic of their situation, it _felt_ to Anakin as though grabbing that blanket and holding on would make the difference between life and death. As though going back to sit against the wall was resigning himself to a slow and painful death.

He did it anyway.

If you weren't strong enough or vicious enough to get a blanket of your own, you could still get warm by sharing with someone who was, usually in exchange for the kind of favors most beings preferred to trade under a blanket. Ryn saw the pairing off - sometimes _threeing_ off - but she didn't quite grasp the situation until someone made her an offer.

A determined-looking young man about Ferus's age approached the corner they'd staked out. (Corners were prime spots, but having won the blanket debate, Ryn conceded on the desire to pick a defensible corner and helped Anakin keep a watchful eye on the rest of the room.) The newcomer refused to look at Anakin, but he gave Ryn a careful once-over.

"I have a blanket," he informed her.

Ryn wasn't sure what she was supposed to say to that: _congratulations?_ She glanced around the room and settled on: "Not easy to do that, here."

The young man drew himself up. "I manage to get one almost every night." He was lying, but it didn't seem to be worth contesting. "My name is Revin," he added, almost as an afterthought.

"Areth," Ryn said, because they had agreed that the name _Ryn_ was too likely to be in Ziro's mind already.

Revin fidgeted. "Aren't you cold?"

If she wasn't now, she would be soon enough. "I'm all right."

"Well, _fine_!" Revin spat, and Ryn jumped at the vehemence in his tone. "If you change your mind, let me know. But don't think too long, because I may be busy." He stalked off, radiating wounded pride.

Ryn watched him go, still not quite understanding what had happened. "Charming fellow."

"Well," Anakin said, "I think he was trying to be polite about it."

"Polite about _what_?" Ryn asked, still watching as Revin picked a spot of floor and wrapped himself in his lonely blanket.

She sensed Anakin's amusement a half-second before he said, "Offering to share his blanket with you."

_Wha -_ "Oh," Ryn said, as the pieces fell into place. She looked back at Revin, who met her eyes briefly with an odd mixture of regret and resentment. "I'm guessing that his motives wren't entirely altruistic."

Anakin stifled laughter. "Guess not."

Ryn mulled it over for a minute. Anakin must have known she wasn't all that happy with her thoughts; he kept stroking his fingertips up and down her arm, and Ryn suspected he was putting some Force-comfort into the touch.

"At home it's the women who make an invitation," she said at last, starting at the least dangerous place her thoughts had taken her.

Anakin turned her left hand palm-up on his upraised knee and began stroking the inside of her arm, from the heel of her hand to her rolled-up sleeve. "Why is that?"

Ryn hadn't thought about _why_ before. It seemed natural, because it was all she really knew. But if there had to be a _why_ ... "I'm not sure, exactly. Maybe because of our anti-trespassing laws."

"Trespassing laws." Anakin sounded doubtful.

"Well, you can't enter someone's home without an invitations, so by analogy ..."

Anakin snorted. "I get the picture." He tugged her a little closer. "So how does this invitation thing work?"

It seemed like an odd thing for Anakin to be interested in. Ryn pulled back a little, frowning as she tried to figure it out ... and immediately was assaulted by myriad notes of misery, like a sordid symphony in the room around them.

Anakin tugged at her hand again, regaining her attention. "The invitations?"

And suddenly Ryn understood what he was doing: keeping her distracted, drowning out her senses with his presence so she wouldn't have to suffer empathically along with every being in the slave quarters.

"Anakin, you don't have -"

Anakin cut her off with a teasing grin. "I think you're just embarrassed to tell me."

Ryn looked back at the room, full of little sounds of fear and suffering, and suddenly she felt Anakin's hand at her chin, turning her back to face him, cradling her face in dirty fingers. "Don't," he whispered. "Please don't."

Ryn didn't really understand his urgent need to shelter her from the obvious, as though that would somehow make her safer. But the anguish in his eyes was something she couldn't ignore. So she shifted slightly, to lean into his shoulder, and deliberately stared up at the ceiling as she spoke.

"Well, there are ways to let a woman know you're hoping for an invitation, of course."

Anakin eased his arm around her shoulders, pulling her more snugly against him. She could feel the heat radiating from his skin, through their layers of clothing. "How?" His warm breath tickled her ear.

_What you're doing now would be a good start,_ Ryn thought. But she said, "Oh, you could try to impress her with your combat skills, for instance. Or bring her food, that's always good."

Anakin's fingers were trailing along her arm again. "What sort of food?"

"Nubian vegetables," Ryn teased him, remembering the first time he'd shown up at her quarters with food. She felt his breath of laughter, and a little of the tension eased from his body. "All right," she admitted, "maybe not Nubian vegetables. Something you've killed yourself is best. Makes you look all manly."

"Okay," Anakin said. "So I show up with a dead animal, proving my ability to slaughter some poor, defenseless beast -"

"Not _defenseless,_" Ryn said.

"- and then what happens?"

"When the blankets are spread at night, the woman comes up to the man who has caught her eye and says, 'The night is cold'."

"_The night is cold?_" Anakin repeated. "That's the worst line I've ever heard."

"Like you'd know," Ryn said, although he probably would. "Anyway, if the man is interested in sharing her bed, he agrees with her that yes, it's cold."

"Even if it's not?" Anakin asked her, not quite laughing.

"Especially if it's not. And then the woman says, 'my bed is warm'."

"Oh, brother," said Anakin.

"Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Force, yes. This is better than the nerf porn."

Ryn stifled a laugh. "Okay. So if the guy is still interested, he can say, 'Lucky is the man who shares your bed'."

Anakin laughed in her ear. "What happens next?"

"Well, by that point they're usually pretty distracted, so the eloquence starts to break down," Ryn said. She was feeling a little distracted herself, feeling her pulse in new and exciting places. She dragged herself back to the topic at hand. "But I think my favorite line so far is 'Come and see for yourself'."

Anakin bent over, shaking with hushed laughter. "So no room for misunderstanding, then."

His breath was tickling her ear again, and the back of her neck, and this time Ryn couldn't repress a shiver. "No, we're pretty direct."

But Anakin had noticed her shiver. "You're cold," he whispered. "I can still go and -"

"No. I'm not cold."

Anakin paused. "But you're shivering."

"It's -" Ryn almost couldn't say it. Her voice sank to a whisper. "I have very sensitive ears." _Not that I knew that until just now._

"Wha - Oh." Anakin mulled that over for a minute. Then he leaned close and deliberately breathed hot, very softly, all over the tingling whorl of her outer ear.

Ryn couldn't help it. She gasped and arched against him.

For an instant Anakin was startled by her reaction; then she felt him smile. "Wow," he murmured. 'You weren't kidding."

Ryn's face was flaming. "No."

Anakin did it again, apparently just to make her shudder. "Are you ticklish anywhere else?"

Ryn didn't think she could take it if he began an exploration of her ticklish spots. She was sure she'd lose whatever fragile claim to dignity she had left and throw herself at him, right there on the floor.

That might not be so bad, really - Ryn thought her pride might be a small price to pay for Anakin, writhing hot against her - except that it had been less than twelve hours since Anakin had made it clear that he wasn't comfortable exploring that kind of intimacy at this point. Whatever els they might be together, they were friends: first, last, and always. And you didn't push a friend to do something he didn't feel right about.

Even if he'd just inadvertently taught you what was meant by the phrase _getting wet._

All this flashed through Ryn's mind in a burst of panic and Ryn gasped "No!" with a lot more force than she'd intended.

"I think you protest a little too much," Anakin teased. When Ryn didn't answer, he shifted, trying to see her face. "Ry - Areth. What is it?"

Ryn shook her head, burning with humiliation, unable to speak.

Anakin lifted his arm from her shoulders and swept the hair back from her face so that he could look down at her profile. "Tell me," he murmured, obviously sensing her distress. "You can always tell me."

Ryn bit her lip. She didn't want to tell him. Couldn't bear the thought, in fact. But she'd never been less than honest with Anakin. Trust had to go both ways.

Somehow she made herself look up and meet his blue eyes, soft with concern in the darkness. That was harder, in its own way, than rushing headlong into battle.

"I'm a little more than ticklish," she whispered, eyes searching his face.

There was an awful moment when he didn't get it and Ryn just couldn't imagine how she could bring herself to explain more fully. Then suddenly Anakin's eyes widened. "Oh. Wow. Oh." He shook his head. "I don't know what to say ... uh ... Sorry?"

"You don't have to say anything," Ryn said. She eased back against him, trying to release her shame into the Force the way a Jedi would do. It seemed like a good time to try the technique.

Obediently, Anakin's arm tightened around her again. Into her hair, he murmured, "Are you sure you wouldn't rather I went out to give you some privacy and got myself kidnapped?"

Ryn snorted relieved laughter. "Maybe later."

Anakin rested his chin on her hair. "Spoilsport."

Ryn laid her palm against his and flattened their fingers together. "Tell me about ruby bliels."

And huddled together in a corner of the darkened slave quarters, Anakin told her about the gloriously sweet, fizzy drinks, cold under Tatooine's hot suns. Such little things, so hard for a slave to come by. He told her about the spacer who'd bought him and Kitser one each and told them stories of angels on the Moons of Iego. About Jira, and pallies, and the air conditioner he'd tried to fix for the old woman.

That was leading dangerously close to the story of leaving his mother, Ryn cold tell, and this didn't seem like a good time for him to be distracted by grief and guilt, so Ryn tightened her fingers in his and introduced the one topic she was pretty sure she didn't want to know any more about. "You thought of Padmé when you were telling me about the space angels. Why is that?"

Silence. Then: "I asked her if she was an angel the first time I met her."

"You smooth talker."

Anakin breathed laughter into her hair. "Well, maybe not. She told me I was a funny little boy."

Ryn had to grin at that. "So far, you're smoother than her." It took her a minute to get up nerve to say what had to be said next. "Tell me."

Anakin didn't have to ask what she meant. But she felt him probing her a little, gently, to see if she was sure.

And then he told her: about meeting Padmé, and the strength he sensed in her and her astonishing kindness. Her courage and generosity. The friendship she'd given to a small slave boy.

At this point in the story, Ryn felt obliged to point out that perhaps his saving of her and her people - _twice_ - might have had something to do with that.

But: "Not for Padmé," Anakin said, his voice certain. "She would have treated me just the same anyway."

Ryn thought that seemed unlikely. But it wasn't like she'd known Padmé herself, so she let it go. "Tell me about Padawan Kenobi," she said instead, mischievously, and Anakin grinned and told her about his first meeting with Obi-Wan, who'd regarded him first as a stray and then as a threat, and now as something of a personal challenge.

"I'm not really sure what he thinks of me, sometimes," Anakin confessed. He spoke lightly, but Ryn knew him better than that and heard the echoes of a child's uncertainty, longing for love and not sure if he were really wanted. Anakin had learned to live with the uncertainty because he had no choice; but he'd never fully come to terms with it. "I mean, I know he looks after me ... but sometimes I wonder if he regrets the decision to take me as an apprentice. He only did it because of Qui-Gon, after all."

And there it was, the bantha in the room: the inevitable and ugly fact that the Kenobi-Skywalker team could never quite get around. Unlike every other Master-Padawan team Ryn had ever heard of, Obi-Wan hadn't chosen Anakin. He'd agreed to train him, to honor his own dying master's last wish. So Anakin could never be sure that Obi-Wan really wanted him, and he was always driven to prove himself, to excel, to win his master over. And, paradoxically, to test him, to gauge the limits of his devotion. To se if Obi-Wan would get fed up and shed the Padawan he'd never wanted in the first place. These two contrary impulses pushed and pulled at their relationship in ways that Ryn found exhausting, and she wasn't sure that Obi-Wan even _knew_. But unless Master Kenobi decided to accept pointers on his child-rearing technique from a girl younger than Anakin himself - unlikely - there wasn't much she could do to help.

She did her best. "I don't sense regret from Obi-Wan," she offered now. "It's more like ... uncertainty. Like maybe he's not sure what you need."

"I _need_ him to understand," Anakin retorted, and Ryn leaned her head on his shoulder for a minute and thought about it.

"I don't think that's possible," she said finally. "You had such different upbringings. You've at least sen what his must have been like, but he can't really imagine yours, and it makes him uncomfortable to try."

"Because of slavery?" Anakin asked dangerously, and Ryn repressed a sigh. _Oh, yeah, this is going _so_ well ..._

"Because of your mother," she said. "Family is something you can't understand until you've experienced it. Obi-Wan will never really comprehend what you gave up. But I'm not convinced that _understanding_ is really what's at stake here."

"What is it, then?" Anakin's voice was almost a growl.

Ryn refused to be intimidated. "Acceptance. For both of you. You're always comparing Obi-Wan to Qui-Gon or your mother and finding him lacking. And Obi-Wan is always trying to interpret you by analogy to other Padawans he's known and finding you a mystery."

Anakin was silent for a minute. "I'd never thought of it like that before," he said at last.

Ryn shrugged. "Saying it is the easy part. Applying it - that's hard."

"So you'll tell me what's wrong, but not how to fix it."

"Helpful, aren't I?" Ryn shifted against him, feeling his tension. "But I'll always be here for you."

"I know." He gave her a little squeeze. "We should really get some sleep."

"You want to take turns?"

"There's no need. I'm a very light sleeper."

And if she hadn't _felt_ his nightmares so many times, she might have thought his tone was casual.

"Okay. Wake me if you need me."


	20. Chapter 20 Through the Night

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I'm just playing around for fun, no money involved ... but I do love feedback. :)

**CHAPTER TWENTY: Through the Night **

Memories of Tatooine - memories of _home_, in and odd, resentful sort of way - kept Anakin from falling asleep right away. He held still, refusing to fidget: he and Ryn were spooned together for warmth, and if she was managing to get some rest in this miserable place, he didn't want to disturb her. But the memories came, and they wouldn't stop, and he missed his mother _so bad ..._ He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting tears.

He'd thought Ryn asleep, but now she stirred in his arms, rolling over to face him.

"Sorry," Anakin mumbled, but Ryn didn't say anything, because she knew, instinctively, that there were no words that could help him now.

Instead she scooted up and leaned over him, bracing herself on one elbow, studying him intently.

"What?" Anakin asked finally, choking on misery and the need for privacy.

Ryn traced the contours of his face with fingertips. "Close your eyes," she whispered.

He did. And then she kissed him.

Not on the mouth. Knowing Ryn, she'd probably think that was taking advantage. But she kissed his nose and forehead and eyelid and cheeks and hairline, over and over and over, soft brushes of her lips, her fingertips all the while maintaining that light, oddly comforting touch on his skin. So much contact that Anakin felt Ryn's presence soaking into him, he way an object left in the sunlight will absorb heat.

And then, finally, he understood that that was the point: that she was driving away the pain by drenching him in something else, drowning out everything but a flood of breathtaking, radiant love, love that poured out of her skin and into the Force and rained in through his pores. He'd never felt anything like it before; even when he'd touched Ryn's mind, there had been things she hadn't wanted to share, and Anakin hadn't wanted to pry.

Eyes still closed, he looked at her through the Force, taking comfort in her familiar, steady white light. Unlike most beings Anakin had known - most Jedi, anyway - Ryn didn't seem to change all that much from day to day. He wasn't sure what caused that, but he liked the sense of familiarity. He touched Ryn's inner world now, lightly, and realized with a shock that his presence did alter hers, just slightly: wild sparks of color flew dancing from the point of contact.

Anakin gave up on the light metaphor - any attempt to stretch a metaphor for the Force too far inevitably caused the construct to dissolve, because in the end the Force wasn't really _lik_e anything else - and tried to see what she was feeling.

Love, as always, although Ryn would insist that love wasn't a feeling but an act. Weariness - she had yet to recover completely from her catastrophe duel with two members of the Blades of Light, and then there were the injuries left over from her torture session. When they got back to the Temple, Anakin was going to have to make sure she got a week or two of decent food and rest, and whatever new disaster threatened the galaxy would just have to wait. _She can't keep going like this. No one can. It'll kill her._ Under the fatigue, determination - to take care of him, to save the slaves all around them, to do her duty well. No surprises there. But there was also worry - she sensed his pain but didn't know how to heal it, this thing she was doing now was just a temporary fix - and a barely controlled panic that she kept ruthlessly pushing down - where was Kit? Why hadn't he made contact? Love again, surging up, suffusing everything else with light and warmth.

_What are you looking for?_ her voice spoke into his head, caught between amusement and exasperation.

_I just like getting to know you better. Inside._

He could feel Ryn's fingers running through his short Padawan's hair, teasing his scalp. _But I'm trying so hard to help you rest, and you are refusing to cooperate!_

_ This is restful._ In the physical world, Anakin reach out and put a hand on Ryn's waist, pulling her closer.

_I think I had actual sleeping in mind._ He felt her little leap of desire, swiftly repressed.

_I don't deserve you,_ he told her.

Her fingertips ghosted over his eyebrows and down the bridge of his nose. _Friends don't deserve each other. They just are._

She pressed her lips - finally, lightly - to his. "Sleep, Anakin."

[]

It was a testament to the easy availability of hapless beings in Coruscant's lower levels that Ziro's free staff put themselves to no trouble to keep the belowstairs slaves alive. Why maintain the replaceable? So the breakfast servings were appropriate, if there had been two-thirds the number of mouths that were actually waiting. This led to bickering and blows, sneaking scraps of toast from other beings' plates, and assorted unfriendly behavior.

Ryn was appalled. "How can they act this way?" she hissed to Anakin. "Don't they realize they're on the same side?"

Anakin sighed. That was the young aristocrat talking, the one who had grown up in a war zone. The product of a world in which loyalty within the group - the warband in microcosm, the clan in macrocosm - was practically the only stable factor left. The central absolute of daily existence. "It doesn't work that way out here, Areth."

"Why not?" Ryn asked, mystified.

Because these beings hadn't been raised to rely on each other without question. Because they had nothing in common except that they were subject to the asme brand of misery. "Because they can't trust one another." And that was something Ryn just couldn't understand. No matter how many times he tried to explain, Ryn would never be able to grasp that line of reasoning. Lorethans fought in what they called packs; to be alone was to die. So Anakin, seeing the horrified objections in his friend's face, said, "It's not something you can understand from a lecture. Just watch."

He wasn't really sure he wanted Ryn to get it, anyway. He couldn't imagine what it would do to her, what it would mean for her to begin to comprehend that kind of selfishness. Shmi hadn't understood it either, not really. She'd accepted that bad things happened, even that sentient beings did some of the worst ones, but she'd never really understood. After so many years on Tatooine, she could still be surprised by the casual brutality. Some part of her rejected the ugliness, refused to let it in.

_The biggest problem is the galaxy is that beings don't help each other._

He glanced sidelong at his best friend, methodically spooning up the sop in her plate because he'd instructed her to eat quickly. In some ways she reminded him of Shmi: steady, loving kind. Open-hearted in defiance of pain.

She felt his scrutiny and glanced up. "What?"

Anakin shook his head. "Just thinking about Mom." _And you._

"Oh." He could feel Ryn's sympathy. "I'm sure she's thinking about you, too," she offered hesitantly.

"Maybe." Anakin didn't see how that really improved the situation, but Ryn was clearly struggling to find the words to comfort him. Maybe she was thinking it would be nice to have a parent alive to worry about her and miss her. Ryn spoke often of Kit, hardly ever of the family she'd lost. It was a part of herself she held tightly closed.

Ryn gave up on saying the right thing and leaned into his shoulder, sending him waves of comfort, and Anakin did his best to smile his appreciation.

Ryn's quiet sigh told him he didn't quite make it. "Sorry."

"'S okay." She spooned up the last of her gruel and polished it off without enthusiasm. "You miss her."

_And you miss your brother, terribly._ But Anakin wasn't sure whether it might be worse to point it out. "Yeah. I do. The -" He almost said _the Jedi_, but that wasn't a good idea: this wasn't whispering to each other after everyone else was asleep, this was table conversation where anyone could hear and might be paying attention. "- other people we know don't understand what that means. I know you do."

Ryn's shoulders slumped a little. "Yeah."

_Oh, Ryn, hatari ..._ He didn't know how he could help her. He groped for something to say that would help somehow.

She nudged him with a shoulder. "Hey. It's okay." She forced a smile. "We don't have time to get all maudlin, anyway. We need to focus."

No arguing with that. "All right. Let's do this."

The slaves were getting up, depositing their dishes, and Ryn and Anakin took their places in the line leading out of the kitchen. "See you tonight," Ryn whispered as they parted ways at the door.


	21. Chapter 21 Close Encounters

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making a profit from this work of fanfiction. But I revel in the delights of feedback. :)

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Close Encounters **

Ryn's first day as a slave was awful. It wasn't so much the work - hard, dirty, and unpleasant, but it wasn't like her life had been a joyride up to now. It wasn't even the treatment she received from her taskmaster, or from the other slaves, who were so relieved at the thought of finding someone lower on the pecking order than themselves that they were fairly merciless in proving that they had the power to make her life miserable. It was the awful sense of despair that permeated the place. It radiated out from the inmates of Ziro's Pleasure Palace until it seemed to soak into the walls and the floor and Ryn could feel it like a physical burden, dragging at her feet, twisting her stomach.

She thought the experience might go a long way toward explaining Anakin's obsession with freeing slaves. She knew his sympathetic senses were fueled by the Force, not biology: less sensitive than hers, and now that he'd had training he could control the flow of impressions ... but as a boy, on Tatooine? Immersed in this kind of hopelessness every day? Ryn shuddered, setting down her scrub brush for what she had some hope might be the last time that day, and surveyed her work on the gracefully curving staircase.

_Not bad,_ she thought. She'd managed to remove all traces of whatever the Malastaran senator had yakked up on the steps, and every centimeter of the surface - real wood, very expensive - now gleamed golden-brown.

Revin snuck up from behind and goosed her under the ribs, nearly causing her to drop the bucket of sudsy water in her left hand.

She knew him without looking, now that she was paying attention, but she remembered to turn around and identify him by sight, anyway, just like anybody else. Not at all like a gifted, Force-sensitive empath.

She was getting better at that. "Revin."

She steeled herself for a taunt of some kind, since she'd been more or less patiently taking them all day. But there was no malice in Revin's presence at the moment. Instead, he felt ... awkward. Uncertain.

"Do you have chores left?"

"I have to empty my bucket and clean out the brush so it doesn't dry stiff." They'd called her to deal with the senator's "spill" after her regular chores were done. She had a sick feeling that she'd probably missed supper while she was doing it.

Unexpectedly, Revin reached out and took the bucket from her. "Here. I'll carry it."

Ryn waited for him to dash the water on the floor or throw it in her face, but he didn't do either, just swung off toward the washroom, expecting her to keep up.

Ryn fell into step beside him.

"Don't mind the others," he told her with a sidelong glance. "They just like to get their bluff in, the first few days. They id the same thing to me. Makes them feel superior."

Ryn wondered how he knew the hazing she'd undergone today, since she hadn't seen him around much. "Have you been here long?"

"A couple of years, give or take. You lose track of the time, belowstairs."

That wasn't an encouraging thought. "Sounds like a barrel of laughs," Ryn commented dolefully, and Revin did laugh.

"Well, the first few days are usually the hardest," Revin said. "Especially if you weren't born to the life."

Ryn grimaced. "I look that new?"

"Well ... yeah." Revin opened the door to the washroom and held it so she could follow him in.

There was no light, so they left the door open as Revn emptied the bucket and Ryn cleaned out the brush. "Thanks for the help," she said as they turned to go.

Revin reached over her shoulder and slapped the door shut, plunging them into darkness, and before Ryn could ask what he was doing he had grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her to him, kissing her with a lot more force than aptitude, running his hands up under her shirt to caress her waist, grunting in satisfaction when his fingers touched bare skin.

Ryn jerked back, freeing her mouth so she could gasp, "What are you _doing_?"

Revin still had his hands on her bare waist. he squeezed, more gently this time, trying to pull her back. "I'll make it good for you," he promised, his breathing loud in the dark room. He tried to stroke her hair. "And I won't tell a soul, I swear."

Wonder of wonders, he meant it. Apparently realizing that perhaps slower would be better, Revin had given up on removing her tunic and was nuzzling her jawline with commendable enthusiasm and no skill at all. He really was trying to make it good for her, the fool.

_So ... not an assault. Just the worst seduction I've ever even _heard_ of ..._

Ryn reached out with her sixth sense and tested him. She sensed desire, loneliness, bewilderment ... but no malice or aggression. He was a walking hormone, but so were most boys his age, so she was inclined not to hold that part against him.

_But this invasion of personal space has got to stop._

Ryn sighed. He probably deserved a knee in the groin for this trick ... but she couldn't help thinking that if things had been a very little bit different, that could have been Anakin, lonely and desperate and fumbling for comfort without a clue.

And she had the advantage of knowing that he really didn't mean any harm.

_The road to hell is paved with ... oh, blast. Never mind. _

She twisted out of Revin's grip and tugged on the door until it slid a quarter of the way open, providing some light. Then she dropped cross-legged to the floor and patted the space beside her.

Revin hesitated for about a second before folding himself up next to her. "Is this about the boy you came in with?" he asked her. "Because you stayed with him last night, even though he didn't have a blanket. And I _know_ you didn't do anything ... like that. You know."

Yes, Ryn knew. She didn't feel like pointing out the intricacies of Anakin's abstinence policy. She shook off the insistent images of what they _could_ have been doing last night and said, "No, this isn't about Anakin." She waited until he met her eyes and nodded his acceptance. "So what makes you think it's a good idea to go around grabbing women in darkened rooms?"

Revin flinched guiltily and looked away. "Nothing. Never mind."

_Fat chance._ "Look," Ryn said conversationally, "I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I'm asking for real."

Revin stared at the floor. "I thought it would be more romantic that way." he risked a quick glance at her before muttering, "It's not like I had any candles."

"Oh." Ryn refused, she absolutely refused, to laugh at him. He was embarrassed now; that wasn't good. "Okay, I get the dark part now." _Maybe not the grabbing._ "Why me, anyway? I mean, there are a lot of girls here."

"You smell good," Revin said, and he meant it - probably she smelled good to him because of her Lorethan pheromones, which were technically odorless in themselves but did tend to alter one's body chemistry somewhat - but Ryn could tell there was more. She probed a little, very gently, and found history of abject failure. None of the girls here would have him. Revin didn't understand why, but Ryn, after she thought about it, did. Revin wasn't bad-tempered or bad-looking, but he projected that earnest air that was like blood in the water to bullies. No one wanted to take the risk of associating with him.

Ryn wasn't sure how she could help with that. She couldn't teach him insincerity, even if she wanted to try. So instead she gave him a wry smile and said, "Good to know I don't stink. But for the record? I think most women want a little more warning."

"Okay," Revin said. He hesitated. "So does that mean we're going to do it or not?"

_Yeah, that's the attitude that will get you laid._ "We're not," Ryn said. "I don't think this is how I want to lose my virginity." She gestured at the dingy walls, smelling of disinfectant.

Revin started to push to his feet, angry and embarrassed.

Ryn had been around Anakin enough to predict the outcome of that particular combination. She put out a hand to stop him. "Keep up with those social skills and you might have sex by the time you're fifty. If you're lucky."

Revin dusted off his backside and glared at her. "What do you care?" he snapped.

Ryn shrugged. "You seem like a nice guy." _Relatively speaking._

"Yeah. Okay. Everybody thinks I'm a nice guy," Revin retorted. There was enough bitterness in his tone to let her know he'd heard the same thing on similar occasions.

"Fine," Ryn responded. "You're a nice guy who has no seduction skills. Technique you can learn. Would you rather be a cad with lots of experience?"

Revin gave her a mutinous look. "Yes."

"Oh, come on," Ryn said, not believing him for a second. "That sort of thing leads to the most appalling diseases. And getting slapped a lot."

He grinned at that, a little reluctantly. "You didn't slap me."

"I'm a very understanding person," said Ryn. "I saw there was hope for you."

"You couldn't see a thing," Revn pointed out. "It was dark."

"Oh, sure, mock my insights," Ryn said. "See where that gets you."

"Well, you mocked my technique."

"What technique?" Ryn said, giving him a smile as she got to her feet. "Come one. We need to pick out a girl for you to romance."

"You know, I thought I made it pretty clear I was picking you," Revin said.

"I think you need to explore your options," Ryn said. "Also, it's cold in here."

"All right," Revin said. "But can I just ... can I just ... you know ... try one thing?"

Ryn eyed him suspiciously. But she couldn't sense any ill intent, just thrumming eagerness and a lot of nerves. "_One_ thing," she told him firmly, and stood still as he edged closer.

He reached up to touch her face. "Close your eyes," he whispered.

Ryn obeyed him, senses alert in case she'd misjudged him. But he just leaned in, warm breath fanning across her cheek, and lowered his head to trail kisses down her neck, licking and biting and sucking his way to her shoulder.

It felt nice. Ryn shivered, guiltily aware that if this were Anakin in the washroom with her, she'd be a melting puddle of lust by now.

Revin stopped at her collar, farewelling her skin with one last, lingering, almost reverent kiss. "Like that?" he asked, his breathing roughened.

_Hell yes, like that. Just not with you._ "Yes, like that," Ryn answered, because Revin didn't need to know about her unrequited lust problems. "That was ... good."

Revin smiled sheepishly in the light from the hall, blushing with the pride of success. "I saw that done once," he said shyly. "I've thought about it a lot."

Ryn saw memories, floating to the surface of his mind: the woman's face, eyes closed in pleasure. The man, someone Revin admired because the women who shared his blankets at night were never dull and teary the next morning. He had an ambition to be like that man: strong enough to get a blanket of his own every night, kind enough not to bully anyone who shared it. It wasn't, all things considered, a bad way to be.

"Well," Ryn said, "good job. But it's still really cold in here, so ..."

"Yeah. We'll go."


	22. Chapter 22 In which all is not well

Author's note: There's a line from the Watsonverse in here, see if you can spot it!

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO**

In the slave quarters, Anakin had managed to save her a sandwich of sorts, dry bread and meat. He wouldn't admit it, but Ryn suspected it came from his own meager plate. In fact, she suspected it was most of his supper. But he was bound and determined that she eat, and with a sigh Ryn gave in and let it go.

"I was getting worried about you," he said as she licked the last of the crumbs from her fingers.

"The Malastaran senator barfed all over the east staircase," Ryn said. "And then I ran into Revin."

She felt Anakin's hackles rise. "What did he want?"

"More of what he didn't get last night, I think," Ryn said, wiping her hands on her pants because there was no napkin. "But we ended up having a decent chat."

"Really." Anakin sounded skeptical.

"Yes." Ryn studied his face in the half-light. "What is it?"

"Nothing. Are you all right?"

"Tired. I took a lot of poodoo from my fellow slaves. You?"

"I'm fine. I meant the thing with Revin. He didn't hurt you?"

Ryn thought about pointing out that the chances of a boy like Revin being able to afflict any serious damage on a Lorethan ex-military officer were about the same as her chances of owning the Arkanis sector. Decided it wouldn't help. Sometimes Anakin's enthusiasm for fixing things that didn't really need to be fixed. Like that memorable incident with the shower in Ry-Gaul's quarters. "No, he didn't hurt me." And then, to needle Anakin out of his present gloomy mood, she held a grin in check and said, "He's actually a very good kisser. He'll make a good lover someday, for some lucky woman."

Anakin's eyes widened and his full mouth set in a line. "Some woman."

"Yes. I'm thinking once we get out of here, he could stand to spend some time with Banora."

"Banora," Anakin repeated. "Evinne's friend?"

"The one who was so eager to improve your evening? Yes."

"But not you."

"Of course not me!"

"Then _why were you kissing him?_"

"I wasn't!" Ryn saw Anakin's protest forming and explained, "He was kissing me. Here." She touched her fingertips to the line of kisses Revin had trailed down the side of her neck.

"Areth, that's - that's intimate. You shouldn't be letting guys kiss you like that. They could get the wrong idea. You shouldn't - you shouldn't allow liberties."

Ryn wasn't sure whether to laugh or smack him. "_Liberties?_ Are you serious? What century are you living in, anyway?"

"This one! I'm trying to take care of you."

Baffled, Ryn sat back against the wall and tried to work through this new and unexpected tangle.

"Okay," she said slowly, "what have you got against kissing?"

"Nothing!" Anakin protested. "Not if it's done right."

"What do you mean, _done right_?"

"You know," Anakin said, frustrated. "It should be ... between two beings who love each other. An expression of love, not a pastime."

Ryn opened her mouth to object and then realized she couldn't think of a reason to. Anakin might not be realistic, but he wasn't entirely _wrong_, either. Wasn't kissing for love immeasurably better than kissing for any other reason? Except ...

"What if you can't have that?" Ryn asked, reluctantly voicing the fear that haunted her nights. She looked up and met Anakin's eyes. "Does that mean you should have nothing?" Her felt her lower lip tremble and stilled it with her teeth.

Anakin was kneeling in front of her, his face in shadow. But Ryn didn't need to see her friend to sense his odd mixture of guilt and compassion. He reached out and gripped her shoulder. "Maybe it means you should wait for the right person to come along."

He meant it to be gentle, comforting, Ryn knew. He was trying to offer her hope. But at the moment it seemed the cruelest thing he could have said. Something snapped inside Ryn.

"LIke you're waiting for someone who isn't Padmé?" she flung at him, her words like darts.

Anakin flinched at her tone, but he didn't lose his temper. Instead Ryn felt an awful sadness well up inside him, and she knew she'd hurt him. He dropped his hand from her shoulder and leaned closer, his expression sorrowful and earnest while Ryn sat speechless with guilt and misery. "What do you want me to say?" he asked softly, his eyes searching her face. "I'm more sorry than you'll ever know. You want me to love you? I do. But I loved Padmé first. The first time I saw her, I knew it'd be forever. I can't change that." She saw the spasm of pain that clenched his heart in his heart in his eyes. "Can you forgive me?"

"Forgive you what?" Ryn said. "Falling in love before you ever met me? That's not wrong. Just ... don't belittle my feelings."

"I would _never_ -"

"You do it all the time! You natter on about how you took one look at Padmé and knew you'd love her forever, and then you turn around and preach to me about how someone else is bound to come along? What, you think being the Chosen One gives you some kind of monopoly on being in love? Or only on knowing your own mind?"

"Force." Anakin sat back on his heels. "You're right. I'm sorry. Really, _really_ sorry." He rubbed his face with his hands. "You must hate me."

Well. There was Anakin, rushing to extremes again. Ryn reflected that she shouldn't be surprised. "No," she said, "I don't hate you. In fact, I think we've pretty well covered the fact that I love you. Or haven't you been paying attention?"

Anakin looked startled; then he dropped his hands in a burst of relieved laughter. "No, I have. I've been paying attention. I love you, too."

"That's settled, then." Ryn pulled a wry face. "Now all we have to do is find Revin a date."

"Um," said Anakin. "Can we review? What about this conversation makes you think we're equipped to handle our own love lives, much less anyone else's?"

Ryn shoved her sadness down, swallowed her lingering tears, and grinned at him. "Don't be a wet blanket. Come here and help me plot."

[]

The next night, someone - well, several someones - challenged them for the use of their chosen corner.

Anakin and Ryn were both exhausted, and Ryn was sporting some exciting new bruises that didn't exactly testify to a day peacefully spent, but she hadn't had a chance to tell him what had happened yet, so Anakin didn't yet know who was destined for a punishment.

He definitely hadn't mentioned the punishment plan to Ryn. he had a feeling she might not like it.

And it wasn't going to matter or if they didn't make it through the next five minutes, anyway.

Standing back-to-back with Ryn in front of the little area they had staked out _theirs_ - still no blankets - Anakin tried hard to approach the situation like a Jedi and not like a former slave.

"Look," he told the Phlog looming over him, "we claimed this spot two nights ago. No one said anything about it then. I don't see how you an claim we're in your space now."

But he did. The Phlog, just like everyone else, had taken a couple of days to size them up and concluded that they weren't that dangerous. The Phlog just happened to be the first to act on his conclusion - probably he'd made someone mad earlier in the day and needed the corner's more defensible position - but the rest of the group in the slave quarters was thinking pretty much the same thing.

If they didn't deal with this threat efficiently, they'd be marking themselves as easy prey, and they'd be harassed constantly. Master Vos might even have to pull them out.

But it was the Jedi way to pursue a non-violent solution whenever possible.

The Phlog gave him some poodoo about generously letting the newcomers settle in comfortable. Anakin could practically Ryn's eyes rolling.

"Perhaps if you had felt inclined to open the dialogue two days ago, I would find it easier to believe you," Anakin said calmly. If the Phlog's mind hadn't reeked of lies, that might have helped, too.

The Phlog babbled something about not needing to draw attention to what everyone knew already.

_Right._ Anakin felt he wasn't doing that well with the non-violent approach. Over his shoulder, he asked Ryn, "What do you think?"

Slender back pressed easily against his, Ryn didn't look around. "I think he's got friends."

Anakin saw what she meant. Backed by at least four companions, the Phlog wasn't going to see the need to negotiate, regardless of how reasonable Anakin's argument might sound.

He scanned the room without moving as the Phlog grinned, evidently thinking he had them. "How many can you handle?"

"What, you got somewhere to be?"

"Smartass."

"As many as I have to," Ryn amended. He couldn't sense anything from her except calm confidence, and a sort of hyperalertness: the clarity of Ryn's battle mind.

Anakin gave the Phlog a deliberate once-over. "Should we let them make the first move, your think?"

Ryn shrugged; he could her shoulder brushing his back. "Why not? I've got time to kill."

Anakin grinned, the Phlog charged, and the mayhem began.

The Phlog's first strike met empty air as Anakin and Ryn dodged in opposite directions. Anakin heard an _oof_ noise as he snapped back into position and knew that Ryn had landed a hit on the Gamorrean who was attacking her and then the Phlog stepped in again, so Anakin met him with a sharp kick to the knee that failed to crack the bone but forced him to sway back, anyway.

The Phlog rushed him this time, and Anakin felt the impact shudder through him to Ryn, who staggered once and then held her ground.

"Incoming," she said, and Anakin glanced to the side to see another Gamorrean and a Dug, closing in. The Gamorean wasn't worth worrying about, unless he was a _lot_ faster than the rest of his species, but the Dug ... Anakin was going to have to even the odds, and soon.

There was a sense of movement behind him, a rush of air, and Gamorrean one howled and staggered into Anakin's peripheral vision, clutching an arm that bent in the wrong place. _On second thought, looks like Ryn has it covered._ He didn't dare look away from the Phlog, who was prowling around him in a half-circle, looking for a weakness.

The Phlog plunged in as the Dug rushed Ryn, and Anakin's fear for her - as the memory of Sebulba and childhood violence soured his mouth like dreams of monsters under the bed - slowed his reactions just enough and the Phlog picked him up and threw him bodily across the room.

_Anakin! You all right?_ Ryn didn't look at him, too busy dodging, both the Dug and Gamorrean Two.

_I'm fine._ The Phlog was moving in him, though. Anakin surged to his feet in time to dodge the first blow, just as Gamorrean Two grabbed Ryn and lifted her over his head for a body slam that never happened, because she caught herself on her hands and twisted and Anakin missed what she did next because he was too busy driving the Phlog's nose backward into his skull, but then the Gamorrean was down and Ryn was going head-to-head with the Dug and the fight, suddenly, was even numbers.

Anakin dodged another blow and used an Ataro flip to land next to Ryn again. "Sorry about that."

"'S okay." He felt a jar against his shoulder as Ryn was thrown against him, and then the Dug snarled in pain.

The Phlog swung, but time spun out and Anakin saw the blow coming in slow-motion and ducked under his massive fist to launch a kick at the Phlog's midsection that made the breath leave his lungs in a rush.

He glanced over his shoulder to see what Ryn was doing, and found that she was holding her own against her larger stronger opponent, largely because she moved like lightning.

So Anakin turned back to the Phlog, and when he struck the time, he called on the Force, and his open-handed smack didn't just knock the larger being breathless, it blew him halfway across the room.

He repeated the maneuver twice before the Phlog turned wary and backed off, still prowling but unwilling to engage. Anakin saw his attention flick to the Dug's progress - or lack thereof - with Ryn, and followed his gaze cautiously, aware that it could a tactic for distracting him.

If that was the plan, it was working. Ryn wasn't drawing on the Force, at least not in any way Anakin could recognize, but she still burned bright in it, almost as though she were _generating_ energy, rather than channeling it. That didn't sound _possible_ .. but then, what did he know about Lorethan training? He didn't really know _anything_ about Ryn's life before he met her, except that she'd lost her family and fought in a war. _And spent a month on Malastare. Where she took up cage-fighting._

The Dug landed a kick to Ryn's cheek that knocked her sideways, and Anakin tensed, ready to step in, but then he realized that Ryn had taken the blow as a way of changing positions without alerting the Dug to her true intent. Which was ... what, exactly?

Ryn moved suddenly, a _lot_ faster than her opponent had been expecting, and the Dug flew through the air to hit his Phlog companion square in the belly.

Anakin felt his eyes widen "Impressive."

"Well,I try." Ryn stepped beside him, lightly winded.

Anakin eyed the Phlog. He _hated_ bullies, and this one deserved a much bigger beating than he'd gotten, but ... _Revenge is not the Jedi way._ "I think we're willing to accept that this was all just misunderstanding."

The Phlog and the Dug and Gamorrean Two, whod picked himself off the floor, started at the two humans standing shoulder-to-shoulder in front of their corner, confused because they shouldn't have been able to do what they'd just done. They hesitated, considering a rematch. And then someone hissed, "Foreman coming!" and they melted away.

Ryn watched the scramble to look peaceful and murmured to Anakin, "I gather the foreman is someone we don't want to meet?"

"Probably the guy who checked us in," Anakin murmured. "And no, we don't want his attention."

The door opened. A burly humanoid male entered - so not the Besaisk "Boss" who had checked them in, but an underling of some kind.

"Anakin Skywalker," he said, stepping out of the path of light from the doorway and swinging his glow-rod around. "You're wanted abovestairs by some gent with bad hair. Come peaceful - like and there won't be no trouble."

Ryn clutched his arm. "Anakin?" she whispered fearfully.

Anakin gently pried her fingers loose. "Don't worry," he whispered back. _It's probably just Master Vos,_ he sent, and Ryn subsided, only partially reassured.

_Oh, Anakin ..._

"Sh, I'll be fine," he murmured, and stood up.

"I'm Anakin Skywalker," he announced, approaching the glow-rod wielding Foreman slowly. "What am I wanted for?"

The foreman huffed a laugh. "Ain't my job to ask, now, is it? Don't worry. You're like to find out, soon enough."

Anakin grimaced. _How reassuring. _


	23. Chapter 23 An Evening with Master Vos

Review Reply: The Random Read: Haha Action Hero Ryn FTW! Thanks for the r/r! :)

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: An Evening with Master Vos**

Anakin was relieved to see that his "visitor" was indeed Quinlan Vos. It meant that he'd have a chance report, and that his more tender parts were safe, at least for the moment.

He was less relieved to observe that Jedi Knight Quinlan Vos smelled like a distillery and looked worse.

"Anakin," he greeted the Padawan, with the stately diction of a being who knows he is drastically the worse for drink and is determined not to show it.

"Sir," Anakin responded cautiously, since he didn't know what name the Knight was operating under here. _I'm thinking some important information got left out of the briefing._ But then, the briefing had been conducted on the fly, with Evinne making up the plan as they went along. Normally that was the kind of planning Anakin could appreciate. But this time ... it wasn't just his own safety on the line. There was Ryn, here with him in this awful place, and if anything happened to her ... it didn't bear thinking about, so he wouldn't think about it. Not until he had to, anyway.

"I thought it wash ... _was_ ... about time I came to see how you were getting alone. Along."

_Sober, which is more than I can say for you._ Anakin frowned. "I'm fine, sir. so is Ryn. We're settling in amongst the other ... uh ... inmates. Ryn's made one friend, a guy a couple of years older than me, named Revin. I haven't had a chance to get close to anyone yet, but I'm working on it. And tonight we both made a couple of enemies."

"Enemies," Vos repeated, glassy-eyed but sort of dully focused. "C'mere."

Anakin stepped closer to the sofa on which Vos was sitting, until the older man reached out and took Anakin's hand in his own.

Anakin blinked down at him in confusion, fairly certain that this was not standard debriefing procedure, even during field operations.

"Nice hands," Vos murmured thickly. "Young. Strong." He held Anakin's hand up and began an entirely unexpected process of licking between the fingers. "Mmm. Are these enemies dangerous?"

"Uh," said Anakin. He was far from convinced at this point that Master Vos was capable of doing anything useful even if he and Ryn did need help. "Nothing we can't handle, sir." _I hope._

"You sure?" Vos said. He licked again, looked up and met Anakin's eyes with surprisingly clear intent. "Never know who may be watching," he murmured, and without warning he jerked Anakin forward to sit on his lap.

He made the younger Jedi straddle him, which Anakin thought unnecessarily invasive. "Sir ..."

"Sh." Vos laid his mouth against Anakin's ear and somehow combined a whisper with kissing. "Try to play along, Anakin. It's safer that way."

Anakin thought he might have preferred another fight with the Phlog. "What do you want me to do?" he asked reluctantly.

Vos tongued his way down to the angle of Anakin's jaw and said, "Ish there anything you _feel_ like doing?"

_Not with you,_ Anakin thought, but he said, "Look, seduction is not the goal here, right? So just tell me what to do and I'll do it."

Vos laughed softly, pulling back a little, and for a moment Anakin saw a shadow of the wryly humorous man he thought he knew, and some awful, hidden pain, behind the gaze of alcohol. "All right. One good kiss for whoever's watching, and then you can go back to your little Lorethan."

_Ryn?_ "No! Sir, we're not -"

But at that moment Quinlan's fingers wrapped around the back of Anakin's neck, gentle but insistent, pulling him closer, and then he couldn't talk any more because his mouth was occupied.

There was a lot of slurping and moaning, as though Vos wanted to put on a good show for whoever was supposed to be watching, but no tongue, for which Anakin was profoundly relieved. This was the most distasteful thing he'd had to do in a long time. Going undercover as a slave was one thing, but faking intimacy like this made his skin crawl.

At last Vos pulled back and gently swiped the spit from Anakin's lips with a wry smile. "You'll never be an actor, Anakin, but I find that I like that about you."

"Uh," said Anakin for the second time that night.

Quinlan Vos sighed. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize it would distress you so deeply. Perhaps I should have realized." He was still whispering, presumably to avoid detection by whatever device he thought might be listening. "You should go now. How much more time do you need?"

"To the end of the week," Anakin answered, certain, and Vos nodded.

"I'll send for one of you then. Go."

[]

By the time Anakin got back to the slave quarters, Ryn was involved in another standoff with the Phlog and the Dug, the Gamorreans having evidently declined to come back for seconds.

Ryn was standing in their corner, fists up, feet planted wide and light. what little illumination there was glinted on the blood trickling from her split lip, but from the way the other two were eying her - cagily, throwing feints to test her defenses - she must have gotten in a few hits of her own.

She had to have known where Anakin was - she always seemed to know where he was - but she didn't give away his presence by even the flicker of an eye, so Anakin took the opportunity to stalk up behind the other two, then somersault over their heads to land beside his friend. It was an easy move for a Jedi, but it looked impressive because most beings couldn't do it.

"I thought we had resolved this misunderstanding," he told the Phlog pleasantly, striving for Obi-Wan's brand of diplomatic sarcasm.

Beside him, Ryn snorted. "I think they got confused in your absence."

"Uh-huh." Anakin fell into a fighting stance. "Well, gentlebeings? Are we going to continue having a problem, here?"

There was a tense moment, during which the four of them sized one another up. Finally the Phlog said, "This is more trouble than it's worth," and stormed off. The Dug followed him.

Ryn let out her breath in a quiet exhalation of relief, watching them go. "Nice timing."

Anakin touched her bleeding lip. "Not good enough."

'I'll take it," Ryn said, and he felt her mind brush against his, lightly probing. "How was it?"

"Weird," Anakin said. "I think he was drunk."

Ryn quirked an eyebrow. _Vos?_ she mouthed.

"Yeah. Like I said, it was weird."

"What happened?"

"He asked me how things were going, kissed me a few times, and then told me to leave."

"That's weird, all right." Ryn lowered herself to the floor with a fluid grace that made her look practically boneless. Or double-jointed, like Tru Veld. "He _kissed_ you? Is that normal?" She didn't say _for a Jedi_, but she didn't have to: Anakin knew what she meant.

"Well, _no,_" he said now, dropping cross-legged to the floor, facing her. "That would be why I called it weird."

"Sorry," Ryn said, winced as her grin pulled at the split in her lip. She fingered it gingerly and said, "I'm just trying to define what sort of weirdness we're dealing with here. I don't want to get freaked out by the wrong thing."

Anakin groaned. "You can pretty much start anywhere."

Ryn made a sympathetic noise, but then her eyes flashed with mischief. "So," she said, lowering her voice conspiratorially, "was he a good kisser?"

She said it with a straight face, but Anakin could hear the laughter beneath her saucy tone, and finally he gave up and laughed, too.

"I don't know," he said. "It's not like I know much about it."

"I seem to recall differently," Ryn said, still amused.

Well, they'd had that one hot kiss - _glorious_ might be a better word - but that didn't exactly make him an expert. He edited that thought for Ryn's benefit: "I don't have a lot of experience."

"There's no substitute for natural talent," Ryn countered cheerfully. She spoke lightly, but Anakin feel traces of longing, leaking through her shields. Her presence in the Force was ... wistful.

"I'm sorry," Anakin said quietly. 'We can talk about something else."

"And yet I remain fascinated by this discussion of kissing skills," Ryn said. "Did he use tongue?"

"Eww!" said Anakin, although he'd tongued her pretty thoroughly the one time they'd kissed. _Sweet so sweet your mouth smell your skin taste you deeper oh Force so good shaking closer open sweet open to me _- "No. Well, only on my ear."

Ryn laughed delightedly and leaned closer, like any teenage girl eager for the sexy details. "Your _ear_? Wait. Start the beginning. Tell me everything."

So he told her the whole story, half in whispers and half in his clumsy touches on her mind.

When it was over, Ryn laughed at the strangeness of it all, but she also gave him a shrewd look. "It really bothered you, didn't it?"

Anakin sighed. "I'm not sure. I mean, covering in case of surveillance did make sense. But ... there was something ... _wrong_ ... about Master Vos."

Ryn sat back. "Tell me."

"I don't know what there is to tell," Anakin admitted. "It's like ... I felt like he _did_ want me, even if that's not why we were there."

Ryn absorbed this carefully. Anakin could practically see her turning the idea over in her mind, examining it from every angle. At last she said. "Maybe he _is_ attracted to you, but he knows that your difference in age and status make it inappropriate for him to pursue the matter," she suggested.

_But he's a Jedi,_ Anakin reminded her. "He should be able to experience these feelings and release them." _Into the Force._

"That's the ideal," Ryn said. "He spends a great deal of time" _away from the Temple_ "sundered from others of his kind, alone amongst strangers. It's not surprising that he would adopt some habits of the galaxy outside."

_Jedi training is supposed to prevent that,_ Anakin told her.

Ryn shrugged. _Sometimes, when you're undercover long enough, the lines get blurred._ "Maybe he's lonely."

Could it have been loneliness he'd seen in Quinlan Vos's dark eyes? Anakin tended to think of Master Vos as a loner by choice, a being who preferred to work alone. But what if that isolation was a part of his service to the Jedi Order, a necessary sacrifice for a being who was so often called upon to live as someone else?

Ryn knew what he was thinking without a word being spoken. Her big eyes were solemn in the semi-darkness. "Yeah," she concluded softly.

Anakin reached out and threaded his fingers through hers. "We'd better get some sleep."


	24. Chapter 24 Hard Day's Night

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: In which everybody has a rough night **

They hadn't been lying down long and Anakin was still listening to he soft sound of Ryn's breathing, waiting for sleep to take him, when a shadow moved nearby and he felt a cautious approach.

He squeezed Ryn's arm and felt her nod in response, and then they moved as one, sitting up in the darkness without a sound.

"Sss," hissed a breath in the gloom. "Ryn?"

Anakin felt Ryn relax. "It's Revin," she breathed.

_Just when I thought our problems were over for the night._ "What do you want?" he demanded in a whisper.

The shadow crept closer until Anakin could just make out Revin's lanky shape and a hint, even, at the angular planes of his face. "It's Revin," the other boy said, echoing Ryn's assessment.

"We know," Ryn whispered, leaning forward past Anakin. His tunic had fallen partly open and Anakin sucked in a breath as he felt Ryn's hair slide like shimmersilk across his bare skin, unconsciously intimate, the one rich, unabashedly sensual thing about the austere young warrior. "What do you want?" She made it sound more welcoming than Anakin had done.

"I got a blanket," Revin said, hoarsely eager. He crouched a little closer, the light from the tiny window slanting across his face. "I thought you might like to, um, share it. Both of you."

"Revin -"

"Not like that! No strings, I swear. Just ... a way to stay warm. For all of us." He shrugged, elaborately casual, which of course did him no good when talking to a Jedi and an empath.

Anakin glanced at Ryn, who gave him an encouraging nod. "All right," he said, "but I'm sleeping in the middle, so if you try anything in the night, I'll know."

"What's he going to try in his sleep?" Ryn wanted to know. "Don't be so paranoid."

Anakin wasn't convinced that it was paranoia. It was true that Ryn could take care of herself if Revin got fresh - anybody who could handle a Dug could do that - but he didn't think she should have to. And he thought the chances that Revin would keep his hands to himself all night, sleeping next to Ryn, were pretty low. Revin struck him as solidly opportunistic, not to mention one of those men who exhibited a lamentable tendency to interpret a lack of overt hostility as an invitation to intimacy. "I'm sleeping in the middle," he repeated stubbornly, and was mildly surprised when Ryn leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"I don't need this much protection," she said, "but I'm glad you care."

"Oh," Anakin said, relieved. "I was afraid you'd be mad."

Ryn snuggled down beside him and caught the edge of the blanket as Revin threw it over. "Not this time," she promised, resting her head on his shoulder. "Sleep now." She lifted her head slightly to look at Revin over Anakin's chest. "Thanks for the blanket."

"No problem," Revin said. But he cast a wary look at Anakin.

Ryn saw. "Don't mind Anakin," she said. "He's a little overprotective, but he's really nice once you get to know him."

"Oh, _thanks,_" Anakin said, and Ryn breathed laughter in his ear as she settled back down.

"Go to sleep," she told him.

[]

Anakin woke in the middle of the night with Revin awkwardly spooning him from behind and his own arm snugged around Ryn. She felt softer than usual, and it took him a minute to realize that this was because he'd never put his hand on exactly that part of her anatomy before.

He jerked his hand away and Ryn stirred against him, snuggling sleepily closer. "Mmmph?"

"Sorry," Anakin whispered, distracted by the fact that Rein was poking him in the backside. He shifted forward and realized that now he was himself poking Ryn. _Oops._

"Anakin?" Ryn queried huskily. He could feel her sleepy mind reaching for his.

"Sorry," he whispered again. "Go back to sleep."

He finagled himself onto his back and lay staring up at the ceiling. _I'd never make it in a threesome,_ he decided. _This is just too confusing._

[]

_Meanwhile, in a bad part of Coruscant ..._

"Hey, Obs."

Obi-Wan nodded at his friend under the awning of the dilapidated building where they had arranged to meet. "You said you were going to see Anakin tonight?"

"I did ... and I did." Quinlan Vos shifted his feet. "I'm afraid it didn't go very well."

_ Oh, dear._ "Quin? Did Anakin ... do something?"

"No," Quinlan said, his face screwing into an expression of discomfort. "Nothing like that. And Anakin and Ryn are both fine, as far as I could tell. It's ... look, I thought the easiest way would be to go into the brothel and take a room, call one of them up to see me. I called Anakin, and they brought him, but all those rooms are bugged, they have to be, and to keep our cover, I ... well ... I kissed him." Obi-Wan blinked and Quinlan's scowl deepened. "Nothing too intimate, I promise, and nothing ... invasive. You know. But he was ... uncomfortable." Vos sighed, looking down the alley instead of at Obi-Wan. "I wish now that I'd found another way to deal with the bugs. I hadn't thought it would bother him so much. When we were that age, we'd begun to ... experiment. But I guess Anakin was raised outside, and ... anyway, when he comes back, he might feel the need to talk about it. Or if it's still bothering him ... well, I thought you should know."

Obi-Wan sighed and put a hand on his friend's shoulder. Quinlan Vos was a good man, a trusted friend ... but occasionally he made mistakes. And, not unlike Anakin, he had a tendency not to think things through. "I'm sure Anakin will be fine," he said, because Quin seemed to need the reassurance. "I wouldn't be surprised if _you_ weren't what was bothering him at all. Pretending to be a slave again ... it has to raise unpleasant memories for him. And he's never talked about his childhood much, I don't know if Shmi was ever sent ... somewhere like that." Vos looked slightly panicked; Obi-Wan realized that he wasn't doing a very good job of comforting him. "But Anakin is a very resilient young man," he hastened to add. "And Ryn is with him, and for all her non-Jedi philosophy, she has a good heart and a clear head." _Well, most of the time._ "She and Anakin will take care of each other, count on that."

"I know," Vos said, looking incompletely reassured. "I'll send for Ryn next time; I've only met her a couple of times, but I think she'll take it better. Especially if she knows what's coming. I shouldn't have taken Anakin by _surprise_ like that ... I don't know why I thought he would just know ... but Anakin will warn Ryn and I'll be sure not to startle her." He took a deep breath. "Anyway, Anakin asked me to give them to the end of the week, so unless something comes up I won't contact you until then."

"Until then," Obi-Wan said, and faded off into the Coruscant night.

[]

At midmorning, Ryn and Anakin met each other in the hallway and glanced around to make sure they were alone.

"We need docs," Ryn murmured, leaning in. "I don't think they're being kept here. So ... we may have to visit the compound again."

"That place is going to be locked down tighter than ... well, I was going to say _tighter than a Hutt's treasury,_ but I guess that's redundant."

Ryn smiled slightly. "Maybe just a bit."

"Is there anywhere here we haven't looked?"

"The major domo's office. I've never been in there, not even to clean."

"So we get in there and we look for ... what? A piece of flimsiplast saying _we own slaves_?"

"Ideally, we find a conspicuous absence of documentation," Ryn answered. "No payroll, no work permits, and especially no proofs of indenture."

Anakin fell silent, putting the pieces together, and Ryn kept an eye on the hallway and let him. "If they've got proof of indenture, Ziro will walk," he concluded after a minute.

"That's what I'm thinking," Ryn agreed.

"But surely with our testimony, and the escaped slaves ..." Anakin's voice trailed off at the look on Ryn's face.

"I wouldn't count on it," she said grimly. "Unless we could prove the docs were forgeries. Which leads us back to finding them."

"Okay," Anakin said. "If I can clear the office, can you search it - fast?"

Ryn nodded once, sharply.

"Okay. In about an hour, you'll get your chance." Anakin tapped the side of Ryn's head. "Keep that comm sat on maximum gain, and wait for my signal."

Ryn grinned at him. "You got it."


	25. Chapter 25 Illegal Espionage

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: **

TRANSCRIPT FROM SENATE COMMITTEE HEARING

"_Ryn Orun, the internal memory from the security droid we were able to retrieve suggests that it experienced a system malfunction at 09:53, Coruscant Standard Time. At what time did you enter the major domo's office?" _

_ "09:55." _

_ "And in the intervening two minutes, Padawan Skywalker was able to stage a diversion so that you could perform an illegal search?" _

_ "I cannot testify regarding actions for which I was not present." _

_ "But the major domo's office was empty when you arrived." _

_ "It was not occupied by any sentient beings, other than myself." _

_ "How did you achieve entry?" _

_ "The locking mechanism was not engaged when I arrived." _

_ "And that didn't strike you as odd?" _

_ "I wasn't inclined to look a gift eopie in the mouth." _

_ "Ah. So you entered. Can you describe the room for us?" _

_ "About five meters by eight meters, wood paneling. One desk, two filing cabinets. Several small statuary that I took to be decorative. A computer unit, set into the desk. It was attached to communications and surveillance equipment." _

_ "You testified earlier that you wanted to gain entry to determine whether the major domo kept documents on the individuals employed there." _

_ "No." _

_ "No, you weren't looking for docs?"_

_ "The individuals to whom you refer were not employed there. They were slaves." _

_ "That is what this hearing is intended to determine. I'll rephrase the question. Were you or were you not looking for documentation related to the workers at Ziro's Pleasure Palace?" _

_ "I was." _

_ "And did you find such documentation?" _

_ "I did not find ID docs or payroll information. I was able to access computer files containing personnel information. Those files have been submitted to the investigative committee." _

_ "Were you able to access all the files on the office computer?" _

_ "No." _

_ "Why not?" _

_ "Many of the files were passcode-protected by encryptions that I was unable to break in the time available." _

_ "Isn't it possible that those files contained the information you were unable to find elsewhere?" _

_ "I cannot testify regarding the contents of files I was unable to access." _

_ "Understood. Let's go back a bit. How long would you say you were in the major domo's office?"_

[]

The seconds ticked by as Ryn waited impatiently for the files to download. One eye on the screen, she thumbed through the filing cabinets for anything that looked relevant. There was nothing like an employee payroll system, which she guessed was probably good for the case they were building, but there were a lot of coded entries regarded "compliments" in various kinds of pastry goods delivered to different planets ... meaning their representatives in the Galactic Senate? Ryn shook her head; she didn't know.

The files were downloading, too slowly. Ryn slipped the stack of flimsiplasts back into place and continued her search.

She flipped through folder after folder of old-fashioned hardcopy flimsis. These pastry things had to be bribes, and ... _Wait a minute._ Ryn lifted out a flimsi whose text was Huttese, not Basic, and squinted at it. Admittedly, she spoke Huttese about as well as she could fly unaided ... but she had one hell of a long jump that would do in a pinch. And she was damn sure this flimsi said something about delivering a shipment - _of what?_ - to Borsana Terce.

Borsana Terce, which was currently engaged in a very ugly, very illegal arms race with Borsana Sexto.

And Ziro had recently taken up the weapons trade.

_I have a bad feeling about this._

Well, the words were in Huttese, but the alphabet was Aurebesh. Which meant that Anakin could read this, if she could sneak it to him.

_Ryn Orun, undercover agent and master of espionage. This has got to be the Force's idea of a joke._

She folded the flimsi in quarters and tucked it into her utility belt before checking the computer display.

_Files 77% downloaded._

She flipped faster now, looking for more flimsis in Huttese.

_There's one, come on, faster ..._

_ Files 82% downloaded._

Ryn reached for another folder and began scanning. No Huttese in this one, just lists of comings and goings. Some of the entries had comments about the visitors' preferences. _The secret to Ziro's reputation for customer service,_ Ryn thought. _But also a damn good resource for blackmail. More than half this stuff would be illegal even if it weren't conducted with slaves._

_ Which means Senators are going to be awfully reluctant to chat about the evidence._

_ Files 93% downloaded._

She could feel Anakin's sense of urgency, nothing focused enough to translate into words, but definitely a warning that she didn't have much time.

_Hold him,_ she sent, but she couldn't tell whether she got through.

_Files 97% downloaded_.

Anakin was on the verge of panic; that couldn't be good.

_Download complete._

Ryn hit the eject button and caught the data crystal she'd stolen from the major domo's desk drawer, still hot from the transfer.

_Ryn, get out now! Get out! Run!_

She left the program running, trusting Anakin's sudden spike in anxiety, and sprinted for the door.

Which was suddenly opened by none other than the Twi'lek major domo himself.

_Kriff._

She could see Anakin, hovering just behind the Twi'lek's shoulder, still babbling about the Tarkalian ambassador's unhappiness with a malfunctioning 'fresher.

If there was a choice, Ryn couldn't see it. The Jedi Council had to see these documents, in case Ryn's suspicions proved correct and the key to this new weapons trade of Ziro's was here, in her hands. She might be wrong ... but then again, she might not.

The Twi'lek had just enough time for his surprise to become anger before Ryn's foot connected with his jaw and he went down, knocked unconscious.

She and Anakin both stared at his slumped form for a second, then they each grabbed a limb and hauled him inside the office.

"We have to get out of here _now_," Ryn told Anakin. "We can't wait for extraction."

"You can say that again," Anakin muttered. He leapt over the desk to look out the window. "Too high, and the drop is inside the wall. We'll have to go out the old-fashioned way."

"That's not very encouraging," Ryn observed. She felt light-headed with terror. If she was right about the docs, and they failed ...

"Come on," Anakin said, and started to run.

They fled down corridor after corridor, hearts in their mouths. They were in the "abovestairs" part of the brothel, and they careened through the humanoid wing with all the speed of the truly motivated.

Alarms began to sound, which meant that the major domo had either woken up or been discovered. Rodian security staff spilled out into the hallway and began firing at their backs.

They reached the central staircase and jumped off it, a drop of three stories. Ryn could feel Anakin softening their impact with the Force, but she didn't have time to voicer her gratitude before they were running again.

Dodging blaster bolts, unarmed, they sprinted for the front door.

There were guards, and they were firing, but the two friends dodged the bolts and then moved as one, darting _inside_ the fire to deliver swift, identical snap-kicks that knocked the blasters free.

The guards had managed to seal the door against them - some kind of magnetic locking device - but Ryn spun on her heel and returned fire at the guards racing down the stairs behind them while Anakin worked to hot-wire the seal.

The door slid open. "Now!" Anakin shouted, and Ryn backed out the door after him, still firing.

Anakin led the way on a sprint through the maze of airspeeders parked outside. A sleek Soro-Suub racer opened its doors for them and Ryn realized he was using the Force.

"Get inside!" Anakin yelled, and Ryn threw herself over the hood to reach the passenger side.

Anakin whipped them out of dock and into full speed so fast that Ryn was thrown against the door, her teeth jarring. They zipped into traffic with no regard for the airlane safety laws.

Anakin whistled. "This thing is a beauty! Wow!" He glanced over at Ryn, which at these speeds made her a little nervous. "Tell me you got something."

"Something," Ryn agreed, fighting the urge to say _watch where you're going._ "I just don't know what."

Anakin jinked left as blaster fire zinged past them and Ryn realized they weren't out of the woods yet.

"What do you mean, _you don't know_?" he snapped, incredulous, as they dove improbably between two holobanners.

"The hardcopies I lifted are in Huttese," Ryn explained, wincing as they threaded through the observation platforms on top of a hotel.

Anakin swore. "Take the controls."

Ryn stared. "What? I -"

"So I can read the docs. Hurry!"

Blasterfire zipped around them again as Ryn slid over Anakin to the driver's seat, pulling the docs free and dropping them into his hands as she went.

Ryn put the Soro-Suub into a dive down the side of the hotel, weaving back and forth across its surface, before making a high-speed turn into a docking garage.

The docking garage was set up in a spiral, and Ryn put the accelerator pedal to the floor and jerked the controls left at the first turnoff and heard one of their pursuers impact on the wall of the tunnel behind them.

Well, nobody could say that Anakin didn't know how to pick a speeder.

Ryn took the first exit back into the tunnel, which happened to be the wrong way, but that was all right. Anakin looked up from the docs the first time she leapfrogged an oncoming vehicle.

"Wizard!" he exclaimed. "You could have been a Podracer!"

"I'd rather be _alive_," Ryn gritted through her teeth, flipping the Soro-Suub on its side to scrape between two oncoming speeders.

"I think we lost the pursuit," Anakin said.

"Nope," Ryn said, looking ahead. Two of the vehicles zooming toward them had Rodians hanging out the sides with blasters.

She jinked from side to side as the blaster bolts scorched the air. "Read fast."

She spun them into the next docking-level entrance, blasterfire splashing the walls red, and shot straight through it to emerge in the spiral, right-way around this time.

The tunnel was congested, but Ryn leapfrogged a couple more speeders and emerged into the Coruscant sunlight to find three vehicles waiting for them.

"We've got trouble," she told Anakin, shooting the speeder into a hard climb up the side of the nearest skyscraper.

"I'm not sure what these docs mean," Anakin said. "Two hundred fifty muffins delivered to Borsana Terce?"

Ryn hesitated. She didn't want to lead Anakin into a faulty train of thought if she were wrong. On the other hand ... "The last time I saw an order for that many _muffins_, the Lorethan Militia was buying thermal detonators."

"Oh." Anakin looked a little pale. "So you think it's a code."

"I think that's a possibility."

"And we know Ziro has been getting a toehold in the weapons trade." He nodded abruptly. "Let me back at the controls. And then see if you can get the onboard comm system working."

So they traded places again and Anakin began putting the Soro-Suub through what looked like maneuverability tests while Ryn tried to access the com. "Who am I calling?"

"Master Obi-Wan." Anakin wrenched them into a tight turn as he rattled off his master's code frequency.

[]

"Kenobi here."

"Obi-Wan, it's Ryn. We've had to make an unscheduled departure. We are now - _oof!_ - inbound for the Jedi Temple and need clearance to land."

Obi-Wan didn't like the breathless sound of Ryn's voce. "Vehicle?"

"SoroSuub racing airspeeder, sort of a fluorescent - _gah!_ - purple, late model."

Obi-Wan thought, _Fluorescent purple? Anakin, you're supposed to be inconspicuous._

"We are in possess of documents that _must_ reach the Jedi Council and we are - ungh - under pursuit. Repeat, we are under - _Anakin!_"

There was a crackling noise and then Anakin's voice, staticky: "I can't compensate! We're going down!"

"Master Kenobi, we -"

"Jump clear, on my mark!"

"Find us!"

"_Jump_!"

A shriek, cut off by the noise of an explosion.

_Anakin._ Had he managed to get clear?

A chill touched Obi-Wan's heart. _Oh, Anakin_ ...


	26. Chapter 26 Teamwork

Disclaimer: No, I still don't own Star Wars. I'm not even making a profit, which is why I think you should comfort me with feedback ... ;)

The Random Reader: Hey, thanks for the r/r! You're not wrong ...

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX**

Anakin hit the ground and rolled, bruising himself all over. He pushed up to his knees, struggling to reorient himself, shaking his head to clear it. _Ryn?_

"Ryn!" he called, hoarse from the smoke. He'd lost his blaster in the explosion; there'd been no time to grab it as he jumped clear.

"I'm here," Ryn's voice said, and Anakin squinted in the direction of the sound and saw her getting slowly to her feet. "And I've still got the docs. Are you okay?"

An all-too-familiar airspeeder was setting down in the nearest open space. "Not for long," Anakin said. "Do you have your blaster?"

Ryn shook her head, shoving dark hair out of her face. "I dropped it when I fell." Grimace. "I'm sorry."

"No time for that," Anakin said, grabbing her arm. "Let's go."

[]

They turned down a nearby alley just as they were sighted and felt a fresh wave of blasterfire scorch the air behind them. They sprinted down the filthy permacrete, took the first turn, and then dodged between two buildings.

"We have to climb," Ryn panted. "It's the only way our whereabouts won't be obvious."

She was right, but .. "I"m not sure I can," Anakin admitted, trying to keep the strain out of his voice. "I think I hurt my shoulder when I jumped." That was stupid, he knew. Jedi weren't supposed to hurt themselves falling. But his concentration had wavered, just for a second, and now his shoulder throbbed and burned and sent waves of nauseating misery radiating outward, like ripples in a pool.

Ryn turned to him in concern. "Which one?"

"Right," Anakin gritted, and Ryn moved to lay her fingers lightly on the offending area.

What he saw in her face wasn't encouraging. "It's dislocated," she told him, eyes dark with worry. "I can put it back, but it's going to hurt a lot."

Anakin thought, _More?_

"Take a deep breath and hold it," Ryn said, flattening her hands on him.

There was a horrible wrenching, blinding pain, accompanied by a sickening pop. Ankain swayed, leaning his left shoulder against the nearest wall. Ryn pulled the neck of his tunic open so she could trail her cool fingers along his are shoulder, soothing away the pain. He couldn't feel her using the Force, but it had to be a Lorethan healing technique of some kind.

She pulled back and met his eyes. "Better?"

Anakin lifted his arm, ignoring the swift jangles of pain this caused. "I can move it now," he said, "so yes."

"Good. Can you climb?"

"I'll try," Anakin said, determined not to be the one who got them killed.

Ryn glanced back down the alley, evidently sensing an approach. "Let's try and get some distance first," she suggested, and they ran again.

Five minute later Ryn, who was leading now, stopped in front of an enormous dumpster.

"If you can do a Force-leap, you can probably use the dumpster as a step to reach that overhand." She pointed across the narrow alley to an awning about aw wide as the length of a lightsaber blade. "And from there we go in through a window. If I get one open, could you make the jumps, one-handed?"

"I think so," Anakin said. He hated having to let Ryn take the lead, being so unsure of his own body. A Jedi shouldn't care, but he just couldn't _not_.

"Okay," Ryn said, either oblivious or - more likely - politely ignoring his pointless resentment. "Let me go first and find a good window. Then you follow."

_It's called teamwork,_ Anakin reminded himself.

She took off, bounding up and over with the kind of casual athleticism he'd come to expect from his non-Jedi friend, belying her supposedly weak connection to the Force. She disappeared between two panels of roofing, where the corners didn't meet quite right, and Anakin frowned; but then she was back, motioning him up.

Uninjured, Anakin could probably have made the leaps without calling on the Force. Now he reached into it for balance, letting it steady him as he jumped.

Ryn caught his left elbow for safety as he landed beside her. "There's just room, and the apartment seems to be deserted," she reported. "In and up. If they're not doing flybys, we've got a chance to escape over the rooftops." She vanished into the window she'd managed to pry open and then reached back for him, ready to help if he needed it.

Anakin waved her off. "I'm feeling better."

Ryn's expression as he joined her was unreadable. "Don't use up all your tough now," she warned him. "I have a feeling you'll need some later."

Well, that wasn't encouraging. "You've got to watch that careless optimism," he told her. "I"d hate for you to be disappointed."

Ryn gave him a wry smile, but she didn't answer, too busy finding their next step.

It turned out to be a rickety set of stairs, reminding Anakin uneasily of the ones that had collapsed behind them in the abandoned factory. If Ryn shared his apprehensions, she kept them to herself, jogging the stairs with the ease of someone who'd spent the past several months in a casual stair-running competition with one o the Jedi Order's fittest Padawans. It felt so familiar that Anakin's first instinct was to fall into step beside her, but a cautious perusal of the steps persuaded him that it was better to spread out the weight as much as possible. So he trotted along behind her, staying on eye-level with her butt.

Twenty-six floors later, they both breathed a sigh of relief when the stairs ended in a door. Ryn disengaged the locking mechanism and the two of them emerged cautiously into the mid-afternoon sunlight, shading their eyes to scan for signs of searchers.

"Clear so far," Ryn murmured, dragging a hand ineffectually over her sweat-drenched face. "Any thoughts on how we might get back to the Temple?"

"Commandeer a transport?" Anakin suggested.

"And prove you're a Jedi how?" Ryn asked him.

"Move things with my mind?"

"Yeah, because the owners are going to wait around for that. And move what?"

She was making some good points. "Okay. We could catch a ride on the back of an airspeeder. Several airspeeders."

Ryn's straight black brows lifted in disbelief. "Please be kidding."

"Okay. How about we get off this roof first, and then worry about getting back?"

Ryn didn't answer, but she turned to examine their surroundings. "Better up than down," she said, gesturing at the much taller building next door. "I'm not seeing any evidence of flybys, so if Ziro's men are looking for us, they are probably still near the surface. How's the shoulder?"

_Agony._ "Better," Anakin said. The rest of him felt rubbery and weak, and he knew Ryn wasn't feeling much better, but there would be time to rest once they got to safety.

Ryn nodded. "Well, it looks like this monster has utility rungs, so I guess I'd call that an invitation, wouldn't you?"

They crossed the roof and started to climb.

They had made about fifteen floors when Ryn said, "I'm sensing a lot of empty space just ahead. Time for a break?"

She sounded cheerful, but Anakin could feel her fatigue in the Force. It felt an awful lot like his own.

"Sure," he said, doing his best not to sound relieved.

"In here, then." Ryn wrapped one arm around the utility rung and squinted at a narrow transparisteel window. "Assuming I can work the lock on this thing."

She jiggled and chivvied and cursed, all to no effect.

"I can't get it," she said finally. "Not without cracking the transparisteel." She looked down over her shoulder at Anakin. "Some Jedi powers might come in handy about now."

Anakin grinned at her, despite his exhaustion and worry. "Good thing you brought your very own Jedi Escape Artist along, then." He nodded at the window. "Move up and let me have a look."

So Ryn scooted up the rungs and let Anakin peer in at the window's locking mechanism. Which was when he realized that _looking_ would do no good; he needed to _feel_ the lock in the Force.

_Easier said than done._ But after an embarrassing number of false starts, he managed it and the window slid open.

"Got it!" he called to Ryn. "I'm going in."

Anakin emerged into an unlit room, filled with dusty gray carpet and a duraplast desk. He stuck his head out into the hallway and found a corridor with more of the same: recently vacated offices, some of them still with desks and computer terminals intact.

"Nice place,' Ryn said behind him, and Anakin turned to see that she'd closed and locked the window as she came in. "Wonder why they all left."

Anakin shrugged. "Maybe it was a company that went out of business. Some kind of accounting or consulting firm."

"And they just left all this equipment?" Ryn slipped past him into the hall and leaned in the door of the next office. "Desks, computer terminals, who knows what else."

"Comm equipment, I hope," Anakin said. "It would make things a lot easier."

Ryn frowned at him as she wandered over to the desk. "I'm sure they _had_ comm capabilities at some point. But surely nobody's paying power and comm fees for an empty floor."

Anakin looked around as Ryn trailed her fingers over the desk. "But this place can't have been vacant long," he said. "It hasn't been looted, and in this part of Coruscant ..."

"I take your meaning," said Ryn. "Can't hurt to try." She tapped a button to one side of the computer screen and almost jumped in surprise when the display activated, casting an eerie bluish illumination over her face. "What do you know?" she murmured, smiling.

She touched the screen, scrolling with her fingers, and tapped the display. "Here we go: comm access ..." She shook her head, frustrated. "It's asking me for activation codes."

"See if it will accept the Temple codes."

Ryn glanced up at him, waiting, and Anakin rattled off the sequence.

Ryn was shaking her head before he even finished. "It won't let me enter the passcode. I get an error message that says 'passcodes are numerical'. So the Aurebesh symbols won't go in."

"Let me see it." Ryn moved aside and Anakin tried the same thing with the same results. Ryn didn't say _I told you so,_ but he was sure she was thinking it.

"There must be a way around this," he said, determined to find a way around the block.

"Sure," Ryn said. "Slicing the codes. But I can't do that from scratch. I need some kind of information to get started."

"Yeah." Anakin leaned back, discouraged. "I'm not such a great slicer, myself."

"Can't be good at everything," Ryn said. "What happens if you press HELP?"

"Oh." _Good question._ Anakin tapped the symbol she was pointing to and read aloud as the display came up. "Forgot password, manage accounts ... speak to a representative."

The representative, as it turned out, was not best pleased to be spoken to. She was even less pleased - and patently incredulous - when Anakin requested an emergency transmission to the Jedi Temple. But after half an hour, the better part of which was spent on hold, they were put through to the Temple comm center - _collect_ - where Anakin's passcode did verify and the Padawan on duty snickered but took a message for Master Kenobi.

"Now what?" Ryn asked, when Anakin had given the message detailing their current address - which Ryn had discovered on a dropped business card while Anakin was on hold - and been unceremoniously disconnected.

Anakin shrugged. "I guess now we wait."

So they crouched together in the light from the window, and Anakin worked on translating the flimsis Ryn had stolen from the major domo's office. But since the content words appeared to be written in code - to disguise their illegal and potentially violent nature, if Ryn was right - knowing all the words didn't help much.

"Somebody has to go to Borsana Terce," Ryn told him, once he was sure he knew all the words and was hoping they were both wrong about the hidden meaning. "Somebody is going to have to track that delivery and make sure it doesn't change hands." She frowned. "Which also means that somebody had better go to Borsana Sexto. It's called an arms race for a reason."

Anakin tilted his head to look at her in the fading light. "I would have expected you to support their right to fight it out." The sovereignty of individual systems was an ongoing argument with them.

But this time, apparently, Ryn wasn't inclined to take her usual position. "Support _whose_ right?" She snorted. "Both the Borsana colonies are ruled by highly unpopular dictators. They're waging war with armies of conscripts." She sounded outraged, and Anakin belatedly remembered that Loreth's army consisted of nobles and volunteers. The only people _born_ into their plight were the members of Ryn's own class, the servants of the people. Power in Ryn's universe was a sacred duty; the abuse of it was a perversion of everything she believed in.

"Maybe we're interpreting the data wrong," Anakin suggested.

"How does that help?" Ryn asked him unhappily. "Even if we're wrong about Ziro's involvement, the war is still going on. Beings are still dying."

She sounded so miserable. Anakin put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "Well, now if the Jedi decide to investigate, maybe they'll be able to do something. I guess we won't really know anything until we get back to the Temple."

Ryn sighed. "I hope Obi-Wan gets here soon."


	27. Chapter 27 Breaking News

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not receiving money for this fanfiction. If you think it's canon, you're wrong.

Author's note: This is the last chapter of _Cover._ I urge (okay, beg) you to check out the sequel, _Flawed_. :)

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN**

But Obi-Wan was not the first to discover them. before the afternoon was out, a team of bounty hunters sweeping the area converged on their position.

"Seeker droids," Anakin spat, leaning back from the window as the search narrowed in. "It's the only way they could have traced us here. They must have our biosignatures."

"Whatever they've got, it's effective," Ryn said grimly. "And they're pretty damn serious about wanting us back. Two slaves couldn't possibly be worth this much. It has to be the docs."

"You're probably right," Anakin agreed, still watching. "Which means we _have_ to get out of here and get this information into the hands of the Jedi."

"If we hit the streets again, we might be able to lose ourselves in a crowd," Ryn suggested doubtfully.

"What crowd?" Anakin asked. "This isn't exactly the part of Coruscant where you wander out for an evening stroll."

"I've never heard of a neighborhood so seedy it doesn't have a bar," Ryn said. "They'll have something."

Anakin took one last glance out the window. "Let's go."

[]

But the bounty hunters were watching all the exits. On the ground floor - or what passed for it, here - they could sense enemies in every direction.

Ryn slumped against a smooth gray wall, her face, sheened with sweat. "Do we try the roof?"

"They're bound to have someone up there, too," Anakin said. "And we're unarmed."

Ryn grinned fiercely. "The best way to get weapons is to take them from the enemy."

"Are you suggesting we take on guys with blasters?"

"Well, if you're not busy."

Anakin rolled his eyes. "Plan?"

"Just keep them distracted with Force-pushes. I'll take care of everything else."

"I'm not going to let you fight them _alone_ ..."

"Anakin, I can do this. In fact, I've _done_ this. I'm _good_ at this. I just need you to keep them off-balance and let me do my thing. Please?"

He'd never been less enthusiastic about any plan, ever. But she seemed awfully determined. And they were supposed to be a team. "Yeah. Okay."

"Right." That fierce grin again, then she turned serious. "Let's go left. The guys down this way are nervous."

They broke into a jog, and as the bounty hunters came into view, Ryn yelled, "Now!" and Anakin blew them back with a Force-push that knocked them halfway across the alley, and they never had a chance to recover because the first one to struggle to his knees got Ryn's foot in his face as she jerked the blaster out of his grip, and as she landed left she kicked with the right foot, knocking the second man's blaster from his hand, and Anakin snatched it out of the air with a quick Force-pull, and just like that they were both armed and dangerous.

"Not even hard," Ryn remarked as Anakin came up beside her to survey the cringing men. "I think you two should consider a new career choice. Immediately. Leave all your gear, walk away, and we won't shoot you."

They looked panicked, and then they did as she said. Watching them go, Anakin made a face. "You know they're going to double back and rejoin this gang, right?"

"Of course they are," Ryn said. "But it buys us a little time and saves us having to kill them. I'm trying to do this the Jedi way." They disappeared between buildings. "Time to run."

So they did.

[]

In the meantime, Obi-Wan's day had not been going well. In the morning he had been summoned to a Council meeting during which it was abundantly clear that the Council members were still very uneasy about the unauthorized assignment his Padawan was on, largely because it was sure, as they said, to cause all manner of unrest in the Senate. Privately Obi-Wan thought the Senate was getting far more rest lately than it had any right to; but he forebore to mention this to the Council. He had a feeling they wouldn't like it.

But Qui-Gon would have.

His day was further disrupted when he received a comm from Quinlan Vos, informing him that both Ryn and Anakin had escaped, possibly with sensitive information, and were being pursued with orders to take them, dead or alive. Preferably dead.

It did not improve his temper when a Padawan in the Temple's comm center delivered Anakin's urgent message more than an hour after it had been received.

Arriving at the address the Padawan had provided to find the area staked out with bounty hunters of the most disreputable sort and no sign of either Ryn or his Padawan anywhere was an appropriate, but unwelcome, sequel.

Stretching out with his senses, filtering for signs of his wayward apprentice, Obi-Wan allowed himself a brief niggle of irritation. _Anakin, where in the blazes are you?_

[]

Leaning against the side of a battered structure while his companion tried to determine what sorts of danger lay inside, Anakin tapped Ryn's arm and said, "Obi-Wan's nearby. I can feel him."

Ryn opened her eyes, slightly unfocused. "Good. I don't think we'd better go in there." She jerked her chin at the building. "I'm picking up a lot of aggression and there's some kind of an orgy going on."

"Sounds like a weekend in Mos Eisley," Anakin joked; but despite the good humor, he was worried. "I can't get a fix on Obi-Wan's position. Somewhere above us."

Ryn didn't point out that that left, roughly, a kilometer-wide margin of error, straight up. Instead she cocked her head as though listening, her face tight with concentration. She looked distinctly ... _worried._ "We've got trouble," she whispered, eyes staring at something Anakin couldn't see. "Closer than Obi-Wan."

"That doesn't sound good," Anakin muttered. "More bounty hunters?"

"I don't know. They're not very focused, so I'm guessing not. But it's only a guess."

"What, then?"

"I don't know, but they're angry and they're headed this way."

_Also not good news_. "How many?"

"I can't tell." He could see the dim fires of frustration burning in Ryn's green eyes. "They don't _feel_ like anything I've encountered before. All I can tell you is that they have a lot of aggression and they are ... _hunting._"

_Just great._ "Which way?"

Ryn looked bleak. "They have us surrounded."

"You know, you are not improving my day."

Ryn smiled faintly as she checked the charge on her stolen blaster. "Sorry."

Anakin sighed. "I guess this is as good a place to make a stand as any."

"We have a chance if we're quick," Ryn agreed.

She didn't sound entirely convinced.

But when the first shot flared through the alley, Ryn _was_ quick, snapping off a return shot before the bolt had passed.

"Got him," she said as she dropped to a crouch. Three more bolts flared from that direction, and four or five from the other, and the two of them ducked and returned fire.

"You got one," Ryn said, glancing down at her blaster. Anakin wasn't looking, but her tension told him everything he needed to know.

Ryn leaned out a few centimeters and fired a single, deliberate shot before slamming herself flat against the wall. "Got him. We're better shots."

"But they've got all the cover," Anakin said, frustrated. "I haven't _seen_ anybody."

"_Your eyes can deceive you; don't trust them,_" Ryn intoned, managing a not-bad Kenobi impersonation while she fired again. Her blaster clicked and she hissed through her teeth. "Empty."

Anakin fired past her and as he leaned back she said, "Cover me."

_What?_ "No! Ryn -"

But then the surviving thugs charged into the alley, and his objection was rendered moot.

They came from both directions at once, and Anakin dropped to one knee and returned fire to the left while Ryn somersaulted over his head and attacked to the right. There was nothing he could do for her that he wasn't already doing, so Anakin set his teeth and delivered return fire and Force pushes until finally - it took less than three seconds but it felt like a lifetime - he could risk a glance over his shoulder, where Ryn had somehow managed to dodge the incoming fire and snatch a blaster of her own, presumably from the man lying prostrate at his companions' feet, and before Anakin could do anything to help her she threw herself into a high-arc backflip, still firing, so that by the time she landed again - on the balls of her feet, her execution textbook-perfect - she had marked hits on both ends of the alley.

She flattened herself against the wall opposite Anakin and looked at him as if to ask: _now what?_

But if that was the question, Anakin didn't know the answer, and the Force was answering his demands but not offering any guidance.

"What do they _want_?" he yelled at Ryn, hoping the empath had some ideas.

But Ryn tossed him a distracted look, leaning out from the wall to fire three bolts in quick succession. "Us dead."

Three helmeted alien warriors dropped, and Ryn pressed herself against the wall again as their companions tried to take revenge. "I think something's wrong with them!"

_Like what?_ Anakin wondered. He fired another bolt meant to disable, not to kill - it wasn't efficient, but it was the Jedi way - and found that it had no effect; the dropped warrior continued shooting from the ground. "Kriff."

He shoved him against the wall with the Force, which mercifully caused him to lose hold of his blaster. Anakin reached into the Force again to snatch it away, figuring every blaster the enemy didn't have was an improvement.

"I'm running out of tricks here!" he told Ryn, but she held out one hand with a "gimme" motion, and Anakin tossed her the spare blaster.

She flicked her gaze upward. "I'll cover you," she said. "You remember what you translated?"

It took a painful second for him to realize what she meant: that the only way _out_ was _up_, and that one of them might not make it.

Anakin shook his head. In the first place, he might be able to Force-leap to safety, but Ryn would never make it. She might be a more skilled acrobat than he was, but her grip on the Force was far too tenuous to trust on such a critical maneuver. In the second place ... she had that look in her eye. Anakin had a bad feeling that Ryn was planning to sacrifice herself so he could get away.

_We did that holo already,_ he thought irritably. _Plus I know you promised Obi-Wan you'd come back in one piece this time._

There was no point in saying _not a chance_, because Ryn had already felt his refusal.

"One of us has to make it back!" she reminded him, wedging herself behind a drainpipe as a kind of cover.

Anakin caught her eyes. "We both do." He jerked his chin toward one end of the alley. "Just like last time," he said.

Of course, last time - when they'd escaped the abandoned building - there had been only two opponents, and no one had been shooting at their backs. But they took a deep breath and then moved in perfect synchronization as Ryn spun out into the middle of the alley, firing with both blasters and Anakin leapt out to meet her, ducking under her fire. Anakin fired one way and threw the Force another, and Ryn whipped around and burned a path straight through the line while he fell in behind her.

The enemy was aggressive but badly organized. They fell back under Ryn's assault even more decisively than from Anakin's Force-push. So as Ryn concentrated her fire on the center of the line and waded in, Anakin focused on doing what Ryn couldn't: keeping the attackers off-balance and confused with the Force as she gave up firing and went hand-to-hand in the close quarters. She spun her blasters around to smash butt-first into faces and joints, and she was making good progress; but then three of the aliens bore down on her, and she couldn't possibly fight them off without room to maneuver, she was too small ... Anakin called on the Force and threw them backward with all the strength of his desperation, and they flew a couple of meters through the air, smashing into their companions and leaving an open pocket for the two friends to charge through ... and then they were clear, sprinting down the alley, hotly pursued by blaster bolts.

"I don't understand," Ryn gasped as they ducked down a side passage even more disreputable than the alley proper. "It's like they don't have _thoughts_ at all, just aggressive impulses. They don't feel ... _sentient._"

"Maybe they're mentally ill," Anakin suggested. He winced when he heard how that sounded. "I mean ... like a brain injury, or something. There's a part of the brain that controls anger, right? Maybe that's overwhelming everything else."

"They can't all have the _same_ injury," Ryn panted. They'd gained a substantial lead, enough to take another turn, unseen. "But maybe some kind of drug."

"There's definitely something wrong here," Anakin agreed. They could sort out what it was after they got back to the Temple. In the shadows of an empty doorway they bent over, hands on their knees, catching their breath. "We could really use Obi-Wan about now."

"He _has_ to have sensed that fight," Ryn said. "How could he miss it? So surely he's getting closer?"

"I hope so," Anakin said. He reached out in the Force, searching for his mentor's presence. _I'm here, Master. Any time now would be good ..._ He looked up and met Ryn's concerned eyes. "I think we'd better start climbing again."

Seven stories and four rickety buildings later, Anakin glanced down and made eye contact again. "He's close."

Ryn, hanging from a windowsill by her fingertips, just nodded. "'S good," she mumbled distractedly. It had been a long couple of days - following a long couple of weeks, really - and her movements were growing weaker and less precise. She concentrated fiercely, pulling herself up to the next handhold, and then stretched up, so Anakin could take her hand and haul her up onto the ledge he'd found to perch on.

She flopped flat on her back beside him. "So when you say _close_ ..."

"If we just lie still, he should come straight to us."

Ryn nodded wearily. "That's the best news I've heard all day." She squinted up at the narrow chink of sky visible between buildings. "Well, night. Whatever."

Anakin had to agree. He reached out and took her hand without looking, feeling her fingers lace through his, and found that he didn't really need to say anything, because Ryn already knew. Tears clouded his vision then, but Ryn squeezed his hand silently, waiting while he got his wayward emotions under control, and then they were quiet, just the two of them, lying hand-in-hand and looking up at the stars.

[]

The Force whispered, and Obi-Wan drew his speeder closer to the side of the building. Even sensing Anakin's presence, he gave a very unJedilike start as two figures suddenly sat up and swung their legs over a narrow ledge, almost invisible against the side of the building.

They both looked considerably the worse for wear, but there was no mistaking his Padawan's bright smile, or the easy way Ryn leaned into him. He could tell from the look on her face that she was teasing him.

Obi-Wan pulled the airspeeder into a hover just below their perch. "I suppose it would have killed you two to stay put," he said severely.

They looked at each other, then at Obi-Wan, and shrugged in unison. "Well ..."

Obi-Wan sighed. "Never mind. You can tell me all about it on the way back to the Temple."

[]

_**Breaking News. Dateline: Coruscant. **_

_The HoloNet News received a tip this morning that the well-known businessbeing Ziro the Hutt is under investigation concerning allegations of illegal slave trading here on Coruscant. Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker and Lorethan Commander Ryn Orun, diplomatic attachée to the Jedi Temple, sat down to talk with us._

**HNN:** So you both claim to have witnessed the illegal slavery first-hand?

**Orun:** We went undercover as slaves in Ziro's brothel, after interviewing a number of slaves who had recently escaped his personal dwelling here on Coruscant.

**HHN:** And your findings supported the allegations?

**Skywalker:** Absolutely.

**HNN:** Do you expect the Senate to take action?

**Skywalker:** Now that the evidence is being made public, they can't afford not to.

**Orun: **Public support can make all the difference. We urge your viewers to contact their Senators and let them know that it is time to take action on the illegal slave trade, before more lives are destroyed.

**HNN**: Commander Orun, this isn't the first time you've spoken out against slavery. During last year's Podracing Championships on Malastare, you participated in an anti-slavery protest, geared at Hutt-controlled worlds. Can you tell us why this cause is so important to you?

**Orun:** Slavery is a terrible thing. It ruins lives. I've witnessed its effects for myself, and I cannot deny the opportunity to do something about it.

**HNN:** Padawan Skywalker, can you tell us the Jedi's offical position on slavery?

**Skywalker:** Slavery is illegal in the Galactic Republic and immoral everywhere.

**HNN:** Commander Orun, the Podracing Championships will be starting again later this month. Will you be attending?"

**Orun:** [laughs] No, I expect to be busy pursuing my duties with the Jedi Council.

_The evidence Padawan Skywalker referred to is currently marked "classified," pending a decision from the Senate Committee on Core-Worlds Crime, which has been meeting in closed sessions all week. A source close to the committee says we can expect more details over the next few days._

[]

Obi-Wan and Evinne were waiting for them when they left the news set.

"Did you make the Senate look like slime for not taking action?" Evinne asked, as the four of them fell into step together.

"We took the high road," Ryn said virtuously. "But after they interview Cam and Marath ... I think the Senate will have to act. How's Revin?"

Evinne grimaced. "He woke up, briefly. Master Che insists he spend another day in bacta, just to be sure."

"I'm just glad Master Vos was able to stage a breakout at the last minute," Anakin said. "Once the news story broke, Ziro would have killed the slaves, rather than be caught redhanded."

Evinne didn't say what they were all thinking: that far too many had died in the breakout anyway. Instead she deferred to Obi-Wan, who said, "In any case we won't have time to worry about it. The Council has analyzed the data and determined that your hunch is worth pursuing. They are sending a team to Borsana to investigate."

"Us?" Anakin guessed, eyes bright with anticipation.

"Us," Obi-Wan confirmed. "And Ryn will be accompanying us."

"I will?" Ryn blinked. "Oh. Okay."

"Evinne is coming, too," Obi-Wan said. "She has agreed to set up a base of operations and act as a touchstone with the other Jedi team."

"Who?" Anakin asked hopefully.

"Siri Tachi and Ferus Olin," Obi-Wan answered, with a warning glance at his Padawan. "Anyway, I doubt we'll be seeing much of them. If all goes well, we should be in and out in just a few days."

Ryn sighed. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that. It always gives me a bad feeling."

They decided later, during the mission debrief, that this was the moment when things began to go wrong. Or, as Ferus put it, "It all started when the ship blew up ..."

[-]

The Rynverse Novellas (in order): _Freefall, Gravity, Cover,_ and _Flawed._


End file.
